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SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY; 



BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS : 



DESIGNED AS 



^ ^xzszni tox all Seasons. 
By NATHAN Cy%ROOKS, A. M. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

WILLIAM MARSHALL & CO. 

BALTIMORE : 

BAYLY & BURNS. 
1837. 



Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year eighteen 
hundred and thirty-six, by John S. IIorton, in the Clerk's 
ofiice of the District of Maryland. 



TO THE 

REVEREND JOHN M. DUNCAN, 

THIS VOLUME 
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



Although the articles, generally, in the 
Scriptural Anthology, have appeared in 
two of the most respectable periodicals of the 
day, the Religious Souvenir and Lady^s Book, 
their length has prevented their being exten- 
sively copied, and consequently, they are 
comparativery little known, except to the 
readers of the above-mentioned publications. 

Impressed with the belief that a work blend- 
ing exalted sentiment and devotional fervour 
with the enchantments of poetry will be ac- 
ceptable to the Christian community, we offer 
them, as a suitable present, the -Scriptural 
Anthology, in a dress, in some degree worthy 
of the merits of the author, and of the object 
for which the work is intended. 

In the paraphrase upon the different sub- 



publishers' preface. 

jects, a departure from the spirit of the sacred 
text will rarely be found, except in the " Pas- 
sage of the Red Sea" and " Moses ;" in the 
former of which, for the purpose of amplifica- 
tion, and in the latter, for greater poetic effect, 
the author appears to have followed Josephus. 
While w^e must claim for him a high degree 
of poetic excellence, we would by no means 
insist that our author's productions will be 
found superior to criticism, as they are mere- 
ly the relaxation of a scholar, while laborious- 
ly engaged as superintendant of one of our 
largest and most respectable literary institu- 
tions. 



CONTENTS, 



wer of Paphos - - - . 13 

braham's Sacrifice - - - - 43 

he Flood - » - - 50 

lijah Fed by Ravens .... go 

agues of Egypt . . . . g3 

ternity of God - - - . 68 

jstruction of Jerusalem ^ - - 72 

OSes ----- 81 

?heading of John the Baptist - - - 96 

le Captivity - - . - . 203 

jstruction of Sodom - - - _ 107 

iising of the Widow's Son - - - 111 

^ath of Samson - - - - 119 

ilshazzar - - - - - 123 

lul before King A grippa - . . 131 

3ok not on Wine . . _ . 137 

oses Smiting the Rock - - - 139 

he Prodigal - - - - . I43 

he Resurrection .... 150 

reation - - - - - 153 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Sennacherib ----- If 

Adoration of the Wise Men - - - 16 

The Tower of Babel . . . . u 

The Crucifixion ----- 16 

The Heavy-Laden . - - - i; 

Decay .----. i"; 



EMBELLI SHMENTS 



Presentation Plate . . . . . 1 

Vignette Title Page .... 2 

Bower of Paphos Painted by Martin . 13 . 

Abraham's Sacrifice do. Rombouts . 43 

Seventh Plague of Egypt do. Martin . 63 

Moses . . do. Poussin . 81 

Daughters of Jerusalem Weeping Martin . 103 

Belshazzar's Feast Painted by West . 123 

Moses Smiting the Rock do. Westall . 139 

Creation . . do. Martin . 153 

The Tower of Babel do. Martin . 167 



MINOR EMBELLISHMENTS, 
TAIL PIECES. 

Cherub . . . . . .42 

Christ Preaching ..... 72 

Elijah Dividing Jordan .... 93 

HarpofJudah ..... 106 

David and Goliah . . . . . 122 

The Good Samaritan . . . .140 

The Bible, etc 152 

Finis 180 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 



A R G U M E N T 



Chrestogiton, a Cyprian, who had rendered signal service to his 
native island, and risen to the Archonship, is deposed by Melaco- 
MAS, a rival, and sent into banishment. Preferring death to exile, he 
returns to Cyprus; and, meeting with Appianus, a Roman, and his 
daughter, two Christians^ who had fled from persecution at Antioch, 
he falls in love with the maid and embraces her religion. Mela co- 
Mas, struck with the beauty of the young Roman, makes love to her, 
and being repulsed, dooms her and her father and Chrestogiton to 
death, by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. Chrestogiton preaches 
the Christian religion to the Cyprians, and slays the lion which is let 
into the arena. Triumph of the Christian faith. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 

IVow they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that 

Acts Ch. xi. v. 19. 

XetAfa Se Spoaoepra Kai fj ixe'XiipvpTOi EKetpri 

H.9eog api.iovt.ri kecttos e(pv Ila^j/yj, 
Tovrois Ttaaiv fyco KaraSaixvafiat opjxacn fiovvon 

QeXyopai oig eX-rns //£iXt%os evSiaei. 

P. SiLENTIARIUS. 

The day-god, off Drepanum's height, 

Still lingered o'er the happy isle ; 
And Paphos' gilded domes grew bright 

Beneath his last and loveliest smile : 
Bright came the opalled sunbeams down 
Upon each mountain's golden crown. 

Tinting the foliage of the trees— 
The purple billows of the ocean, 

Swept by the pennons of the breeze. 
Were curling with a gentle motion, 



14 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

As if, in sunny smiles, their waves 
Were welcoming to Tithonus' bed 

Far down amid the coral caves — 
The weary god ; while round his head 

The crimson curtains of the west 
Were drawn, as down the watery steep, 
His flashing car descended deep, 

Amid the golden sands to rest. 

How throbs the pulse of those who roam — 

How glows the breast with rapture, burning 
With thoughts of kindred and of home, 

When to that sacred spot returning ! 
Although the exile's foot may tread 

The flowery soil of fairest isles 

That dimple ocean's cheek with smiles ; 
And stainless skies gleam o'er his head : 

His native land — though icebergs frown 

In one eternal winter, down 
Upon its cold and barren shore, 

Or though the red volcano's tide, 
In waves of death, its plains sweep o'er, 

Is fairer than all earth beside. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 15 

Once more on Cyprus' sunny strand 

The exiled Chrestogiton stood, 
And hailed his own, his happy land, — 

The blooming Eden of the flood, 
The fertile land of fruits and flowers 

Where everlasting summer strayed. 
Chasing the rosy-winged hours ; 
And 'mid her OAvn sweet myrtle bowers, 

Young Love, with flowing girdle, strayed. 

The floodtide of a bosom, swelling 
With Nature's tender sympathies. 

Was gushing from their holy dwelling ; 
And all his soul was in his eyes. 

As rose, on his enraptured view, 
The azure summits of the hills, 
With the bright wealth of pearly rills 
Leaping from their elm-clouded side. 

Like moonbeams, from Heaven's urn of blue. 
Poured on the ocean's flashing tide. 
The beauty of the palmy shore, 

With pavement of the rosiest shell. 



16 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The grandeur of her sea, whose roar 
Brought music on its waters' swell — 

Her blue-eyed maids, with golden hair. 

Streaming, like sunlight, on the air j 
Her temple and the mighty fanes. 

In honour of the ocean-born, 
And all those early joys and ties 
Shrined in the heart's deep memories. 

Came o'er his soul like breath of morn ;- 
And in the beauty of those plains 

That e'en the gods had deigned to bless 

With presence of their holiness. 
He, all his burning wrongs forgot — 
That far from this delightful spot 
By his ungrateful country driven. 

Like the spurned sea-weed upwards cast 

By its inconstant element, 
The sport of every wind of heaven. 

He had his cheerless youth's prime past 

In cold and withering banishment. 
While he, his hated rival, sway ad. 
In all the pomp of power arrayed. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 17 

The Archon's sceptre, o'er a clime 

By treachery won, maintained by crime. 
Yes ; in that holy hour, when Heaven 

Mingled in unison with earth, 
His country's wrongs were all forgiven ; — 

'Twas still the land that gave him birth. 
And though his hopes of fame were blown 

Away by faction's noisy breath. 
And though the Archon's helmet shone 

On Melacomas' tyrant head, 
He felt, in his own isle, e'en death, 

With all its darkness — all its dread, 
Was better than to tread alone — 

A wanderer under alien skies — 
A foreign solitude unknown, 

And void of beauty to his eyes. 

The rays his parting axle sent, 
As sunk the sun beneath the sea, 

Had blended with the firmament, 

And from her azure-coloured throne. 
Beaming in mild tranquillity. 

The star of Love in beauty shone 



18 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

O'er Love's own happy isle. The hreeze 
Shook odours, from its dewy wings, 

Gathered from date and myrtle trees ; 
And music from a thousand strings 

Of soft-toned lutes went to the skies, 
Perfumed with smoking sacrifice 
From earth's most precious offerings. 

The maids of Paphos, all were there 
With lovers, at the altars praying, 
Or else in grottoes' dim recesses, 

With waxen fingers gently playing 
With their luxuriant silken tresses — 

Or through the spicy houghs were straying, 

In snowy robes, like sprites of air j 
And with the host of votaries 
Gathered beneath the holy skies. 

And with the burning altars' glare 

Of frankincense, seemed the whole grove 
A temple and a dream of love. 

As Chrestogilon strayed among 
The beauties of that holy place. 

Where nature's lavish hand had flung 
Her gorgeous giftSj as if to trace 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 19 

An image of Elysium there. 

One of the gayest, richest bowers. 
That ever spread its painted flowers 

To the soft -wooing summer air, 
Broke on his vision — with a maid 

Enshrined within its sweets, and fair 
As snow-flakes in mount Aihos' shade. 

The lustre of her sloe-like eyes. 
Darting from out their fringe of jet — 

Her dimpled cheeks' vermillion dyes 
Where lilies had with roses met — 

The ebon darkness of the curls 

Parted her virgin forehead o'er, 
Bound by a snowy bandelet — 

Proved her not one 'of Paphos' girls : 
With the bright drapery of her train 

Gleaming upon the moonlit shore. 
She looked like Venus from the main, 

When, rolling in her car of foam. 

She came from her young crystal home. 

Within that bower, of green turf made 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

An altar rose, with flowrets strown 
Upon its velvet shrine, whence came 
From glimmering taper-lights a flame, 
And on the glowing features shone 

Of her who meekly knelt and prayed, 
As o'er a rude-formed cross she bent 
Her weeping eyes, in which were blent 
Love, hope and holy wonderment. 

The bulbul in his wonted shade. 
When her meek voice arose in prayer, 
Like holy incense on the air, 

List'ning, forgot his serenade, 
Though his chaste rose did then unveil 

Her breast before him, and each stem 

Inclined its flowery diadem. 
To hearken to his amorous tale. 

The very boughs forbore to stir. 
Enraptured by the accents sweet — 

And the loud waves the tide awoke. 

Hushed into silent reverence, broke 
In gentle ripples at the feet 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 21 

Of the adoring worshipper. 
And who is she — that starry one. 

With ebon hair and streaming eyes ? 
From what calm region of the sun, 

Basking all pure 'neath cloudless skies? 
And who is he that 's bending low 

In prayer beside her, whose breast cover 
The ringlets of his locks of snow 1 

It is not — cannot be a lover ? 
Why these strange rites in Love's own bower, 
When other breasts feel all Love's power? 
Who is the maid ? What foreign tone 

Utters the language of his isle ? 

What strange — what sacred mystery 
That thus the soul from earth doth wile. 

Within that rude-formed cross can lie ? 
Who the strange God ? — to whom alone 
They pray, whose everlasting throne 
Stood fixed in uncreated light. 

Ere the day's flashing orb of gold 
Came from the womb of Chaos' night : — 

The God omnipotent, who rolled 



22 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The chariots of the crystal spheres 
To circle round their course of years; 

Made the green earth, at his command, 
Arise with all its mounts sublime. 

And from the hollow of his hand. 

Poured out the immeasurable sea, 
And bade its waves' eternal chime 

Hymn his own vast immensity 1 

Oh ! purer far than sunbeams stealing 

Into a dark, sea-hidden mine ; 
Its buried treasury revealing. 

Where gold and pearls and jewels shine. 
Is the first dawning of those beams, 

That truth and faith from heaven reflect 

Upon the darkened intellect 
Obscured by clouds and pagan dreams ! 

The earth-clogged soul, that dimly burned 
With an uncertain, flickering ray. 

As lights in sepulchres inurned, 
Shut from the genial air of day. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 23 

Like the wrapt Phenix, fans the fires 
Of faith, and in the flames expires. 

As Appianus' holy tongue 

Dwelt on the nature of the soul, — 
Its earthly fall — its destiny 
Eternal in the starry sky, 
The wondering Chrestogiton hung 

Upon his lips, while sunbeams stole, 
In feeble light, across his mind. 

Where broken images of thought 
Lay — truth and errour undefined ; 

And as the hoary patriarch sought 
The knowledge of the God to give — 

Omnipotent — ^boundless — unconfined — 
In whom all creatures move and live. 

The heathen inspiration caught 
Prom the pure fervour of his breast, 

And casting all the gods away. 
Panders of sinful lust and crime, 

Deities but of yesterday, 
For him existing from all time ; 
The one true deity confessed, 



24 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And poured the penetential flood, 
Kneeling devoutly at the cross 

Of him. who shed his sacred blood ; 

While on the soul's warm altar came 

From Heaven the consecrated flame, 
Consuming all its earthly dross.' 

Commingled with the sacred ties 

That link to purity his mind, 
The image of Flore ntia lies, 

'Mid thoughts of God and Heaven, enshrined j 
But yet the softness o'er him stealing. 

As Appianus' matchless child. 

With sunny brow and aspect mild, 
Raises to him her modest eyes, 
Has nothing of that sensual feeling, 

That guilty bosoms feel below. 
But is a glow of tenderness 

Such as an angel's breast might know, 
For those of deeper holiness. 



BOWER OF PAFHOS. 25 

Their's is a dream of Love and Heaven, 
Pure as the sleeping thoughts that speak, 
In smiles, upon an infant's cheek, 

A unison of soul, where even 
All thoughts and feelings that arise, 
Are mirrored in the other's eyes; 

And many an eve, as day declines 
Upon the mountains of the west, 

Brightening the amber-coloured vines. 
That on their emerald bosoms rest ; 

And many a stilly night, when stars, 
Like gay sultannas of the skies. 

Glide o'er the vault in living cars, 
Seated beneath the canopies 

Of rosy bowers, they pour the tone 

Of prayer to the eternal throne 
Of the great God of heaven and earth, 

While, all around, on heathen shrines, 

The offering of pollution shines. 
And the loud revelry of mirth. 

And lewdness and unholy prayer. 

Like pestilence, rise upon the air. 



26 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And many are the crowds that come 
And gather round the Christians' bower, 

To hear their supplication, some 
And the strange god's vast love and power ; 

But more to gaze upon the maid, 
In whom far lovelier charms had met 
Than ever blessed their vision yet, 

In beauties gorgeously arrayed ; 
And listen to her silver voice, 

As on the air, in praise, it floats, 

Pure as a seraph's hallowed notes — 
Bidding the broken heart rejoice. 

As oft she turned to heaven her eye. 
Her breast with pious rapture swelling; 

And gazed upon the jewelled sky, 
Her spirit's home, and future dwelling, 

Etherealized in look and frame. 

Heaven in her aspect, she became 
The star of their idolatry, 

Some new created goddess, bright 
In her primeval puritv, 

Descended from the realms of light. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 27 

At length came one with brow of pride, 

And lordly step pre-eminent, 
And at the wondering Christian's side, 

In humble supplication bent. 

Why flash the maiden's eyes with ire, 

Like globes of jet in liquid fire ? 
Why mounts the warm blood to her brow ? 

Why stream the blushes o'er her cheek, 
Lighting, with their indignant glow, 

Features so mildly soft and meek? 
What curls that placid lip with scorn 
Red as the blushing rose ol morn ? 

'Tis the quick gush, with lightning fraught, 
Insulted virtue's countenance, 
Shielding by its electric glance. 

From lewdness and unholy thought — 
And he arose — v\aath in that eye 

Where softened down, the fires of love 

Shone in the mildness of the dove; 

And wrath upon that adder tongue, 
On which persuasion's witchery. 

In passion's tender accents hung; 



28 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And frowningly, away he strode 
Muttering dark threats of chains and blood. 
Woe to thee, maid! Thou art doomed, this hour, 
To the Archon'shate, and the Archon's power." 

The lingering blush — the latest ray 

Has faded on the cheek of day ; 
Amid the myrtle boughs, the dove 

Has folded her soft wing to rest — 
And the pure stars, those lamps divine 

That light the regions of the blest, 

In their blue vault all glorious shine — 
And the resplendent star of love 

More brilliantly than all the rest. 
It is the hour of love alone. 

So silent and so soft. The calm. 

Pure air is redolent with balm — 

And o'er the blissful region night 
Is bending from her starry throne. 

To witness and impart delight. 
Where are the blooming maids whom Love 



Assembles, nightly, in the grove, u 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 29 

To people her rose-scented bowers ? 
Where are the groups of votaries 
That strew, in pious sacrifice, 

The altars o'er with fruits and floAvers? 

The amphitheatre is bright 

With the refulgent rays that come 
From many a lamp of starry light. 

Depending from its fretted dome ; 
And on its crimson seats recline 

All Paphos' sons and daughters fair, 

Braided the tresses of their hair. 
With the sweet myrtle-tree and vine, 

In one vast circle gathered there. 

What is the expected sight that binds. 
Amid that crowd-encumbered place. 

Each voiceless lip, as in a trance. 
Engrossing their attentive minds, 

And fixing every anxious glance 
On the arena's empty space ? 



30 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

A trumpet sounded, and the breath 
In every listener's breast was hushed, 

As if it were a blast of death. 
By which each power and sense were crushed: 

As upwards rolled the tapestry 

Forth came three Christians, doomed to pour, 
Victims beneath a lion's feet, 
Their life blood, the arena o'er — 
A punishment both just and meet 

For those whose daring blasphemy 
Would the great deity revile 
Presiding o'er the happy isle. 

Florentia, in all meekness, bent 

Her head upon her lily hand, 
And silencing the thoughts that rose, 

Of her far distant father land. 
Where the majestic Tiber flows, 
To heaven her aspiration sent 
For resignation and for grace 

To stay her soul in its distress — 

Her father's and her lover's too, 



BOWER OF PAPIIOS. 31 

Whose piety and tenderness, 
Pure as the morning's early dew, 
Held in her heart a brother's place. 

Few were the words the old man spoke, 

As o'er his prostrate child he stood, 

Like, in the forest solitude, 
Sheltering its vine, the parent oak 

From the mad tempest of the north j 
But Chrestogiton's accents broke, 

Like inspiration wildly forth : 

" Paphians ! It is not long since here, 

E'en in this amphitheatre, 

In which I now a victim stand, 
Your myriad tongues in joyful cry 

Hailed me the conqueror whose brand 
Had lit the path of victory, 

And freed from tyranny your land ; 
Then all the eyes that now look down 
In anger, and the brows that frown 



32 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

So awfully, with smiles were bright ; 

And every feature wore delight, 
As pressed my head the laurel crown. 

My powers e'en from my earl^ youth 
Were always to my country given ; 

In warm devotedness and truth 
I ever in her cause have striven. 

And laboured for the common good — 
What have I reaped for all my pains 

But heartless — base ingratitude? 
You bound the very limbs with chains 
That, on your reeking battle plains, 
Poured the red tribute of their veins ; 

And hurried him far from your land, 
To wither in a foreign grave, 

Upon a wild sea-beaten strand. 
Whose valour did your country save — 

And to the man whose perjury 
Had blackened all my spotless fame, 

And stamped my name with infamy. 
His country's blighting curse and shame — 
Yes ! to the wretch, whose love of sway 



BOWER OF PAPKOS. 33 

Would make his murdered father's neck, 
To mount to power, a stepping stone. 
Gave every good I called my own — 

Fields, power, patrician wealth a prey — 

The crafty spoiler's name to deck. 

Smile in thy conscious villainy. 

Thou demon of the evil eye ! 

In bitterness of vengeance smile ! 
With heart far blacker than thy beard, 

Thou, Melacomas ! roam'st this isle, 

Glutting thy murd'rous eyes with blood. 
Than whom no deadlier monster reared 

His bristly crest amid the wood. 

What hast thou made this happy clime; 
The loveliest spot beneath the sun ? 

A theatre of lust and crime, 
Where all unholy deeds are done. 
I can forgive the private wrong. 
The ills that I have suffered long. 

My chains and exile pardon all ; 
But cannot bear to look upon 



34 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The shackles of my country's thrall^ 
Her degradaiion and her fall. 

Thy virtues are a robe of sin, 
Assumed to hide the crimes within ; 

False is thy feigned piety, 
E'en as the rosy-coloured flush. 
That lights the deadly simoom's blush, 

A pestilence of blasphemy. 
Strewing thy darksome way Avith death. 
When the foul poison of thy breath, 

In all its v/itchery of art. 
With guilty lust and heathen rites 

Could not corrupt this maiden's heart, 
Who bows her face with tears besprent 
Like a wet rose by tempest bent, — 

Denied thy sensual delights ; 
And for thy utter baseness spurned. 

In all the pungency of ire 
Thy breast with flame of vengeance burned ; 
And thou didst doom the maid to die 
For her unholy blasphemy ; 



BOWER OF PAPHOS, 35 

And 'gainst her hoary-headed sire 

And me, pronounced the same decree, 

Gilding thy turpitude and shame 

And murder, with religion's name ; 

As if through thee, the gods had sent 

The delegated punishment. 

Who, Paphians ! are the deities 

To whom your thousand altars rise 
Smoking with victims, flowers and fruits ? 

Follies and vice personified. 
And mimic gods with attributes 

Of wickedness and lust and pride- 
Monstrous conceptions of weak minds. 
And hearts impure, that error blinds. 
These are your gods, Oh Paphians ! these. 
The deities to which we pay 
Th' oblation of our blood to-day ; 

But ere this mangled body lie 
To bestial fangs a bleeding prey. 
To her best good, in death e'en true, 
I would another service do 

To my poor country ere 1 die. 



1 

36 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. ^. 

Your gods are but another name 
JFor lust, impurity and shame; 

Instead of these false deities, ^ 

I now the one true GOD proclaim, 

The LORD of heaven, earth, sea and skies — j 
The mighty spirit — the pure sense \ 

From centre to circumference " 

Of all creation spreading wide, ■ 

Pervading and supporting all t 

That woke to being at his call, 
Th' omniscient God, from v/hose keen eyes \ 

The thickest darkness cannot hide ; 
Before whom every bosom lies 
Unbarred with all its mysteries, 

Truth, vice, humility or pride — 
The God whose justice soon will bring 
To judgment, every secret thing; 

And measure out the joy or pain, 
While vast eternity shall rol]. 
Due to the doings of the soul — 
The spirit by which we act and think, 
That subtle and mysterious link. 

In the great Godhead's mighty chain. 



BOWER OF PAPHOS. 37 

Casting the deities away 
Of idle superstition, take 

For guidance and support, the God 

At whose loud voice and awful nod 

The mountain tops with terrour quake. 

He is a jealous God ; his sway, 
The world shall own, till every shrine 
Crumble beneath his car divine, 

And every graven image placed 
To heathen gods, be overthrown — 

Their groves a melancholy waste, 
Their altar-seats with grass o'ergrown. 

Yield to him now and sweetly prove 

The conqueror mild a " God of love." 
Yield nor provoke his burning ire, 

Till, in a curse, that all mankind 

Shall dread to look upon, you find 
Your conqueror, a " consuming fire." 

Think ye, the innocent blood ye shed, 
Unseen of him in whom we trust. 
Shall mix with this arena's dust? 

These limbs beneath the lion's tread 



3S SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Be crushed? — the quivering flesh be riven ? 
Our God is looking down ; Oh dread 

The awful malison of Heaven : 

For the dark deed of vengeance done. 
You will, by tears or blood, atone. 

Dare not his wrath ; can ye outvie 
The thunders of his panoply ? 

At a faint whisper of his breath, 
The messenger of vengeance speeds 

In his swift car of fiery death, 
With the winged lightning for his steeds; 

Or should he bid the earthquake rise 
The minister of punishment, 
The solid earth, in pieces rent, 

Is hurled in atoms to the skies ; 
Or should he call, upon the shore 
Rushes the sea with maddening roar, 

Sweeping before his angry waves 
Your towers, your proud Acropolis 

Shrouded in foam to the dark graves 
That yawn within his deep abyss, 



ROWER OF PAPHOS. 39 

Leaving your Eden of the flood 
A voiceless ocean-solitude." 

He ceased, and every bosom there 
Was pulseless, as his final prayer 
Rose holily upon the air. 

Anon the trumpet's piercing clang 
Sounded the death-note ; and each bar, 
Grating the ear with its harsh jar, 

Was drawn ; and forth the lion sprang 

With threatening foot and naked fang j 
A monster huge, of giant strength. 

As ever from Getulia came, 
Lashing his sides' tremendous length 

With his mad tail and flowing mane ; 
From his tapetum^ living flame 
Shot streaming like the lightning's train. 

As o'er the sand he wildly bounded. 
Uttering his loud and bellowing roar, 
Like ocean's rush upon the shore. 

Till the whole theatre resounded. 

* The concave mirror in the eye of the lion. 



40 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And Chrestogiton fearless stood 

With brow unblanched, couching his lance : 

Its flashes caught the lion's glance : 
And as his quivering lips reveal 

The pointed fangs he leaps. The blood 
Has crimsoned o'er the Christian's steel, 

And sluices with its coloured rain. 

The lion's breast and tawny mane. 
The thunder of his awful cry, 

That rung through every listener's brain, 
Equalled the lightning of his eye, 

As forward did he spring again : 
Fierce was the shock — deadly the close 
That on the silent air arose, 

As on the lion's rock-like teeth 
Crashed Chrestogiton's heavy steel ; 

Until, the very force beneath. 
The angered desert-born did reel. 

Soon prostrate, bleeding on the sand. 
Beneath the monster's pressure, lies 

The Christian, grasping in his hand 
The iron of his broken lance, — 
A moment gleams its lightning glance — 



BOWER OF PAFHOS. 41 

Another — and the lion's heart 

Is pierced by its long barbed dart — 
The blood spouts forth — he falls — he dies. 

And on each other's necks the three 
Unite in thanks to Heaven, while rise 

From heathen lips in the same hour 

Praises to the true Deity, 
The Christians' God of mighty power, 

Who bids the desert monsters kneel 

Beneath his followers' nerves of steel. 

Hid is the temple 'neath the sand, 

That gleamed on Paphos' golden shore, 
The pride and wonder of the land ; 

Her altars flame with flowers no more ; 
But on her fallen and crumbled shrines 
The mournful moonbeam palely shines. 

And other fanes as fair, and grand 
Have passed away, and every stone 
That reared their piles is overthrown; 

Still onward speeds the truth divine 
Lighting with its benignant ray. 



42 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

From either pole unto the line, 
The regions that in darkness lay ; 
And every mount and viny plain 
Is smiling 'neath Messiah's reign. 

His sceptre shall the nations own. 
And reverence his almighty word, 
Till the whole earth, with one accord, 

Acknowledge his eternal throne 5 
And every isle that decks the sea. 
Shout the Redeemer Deity. 




ABRAHAM'S SACRIFICE. 



Aud they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham 
built an altar there and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son 
and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth 
his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 

And the.angel of the Lord called unto him out ofheaven, and said, Abra- 
ham, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thy hand upon the 
lad, neither do thou any thing unto him : for now I know that thou fear- 
est God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son — thy only son from me. 

Gen. XXII. 9, 10, 11, 12. 



Night trembled on her throne, and furling up 
Her starry banner, to the conquering sun, 
Whose car of flame rolled up the eastern hills. 
Resigned the silver sceptre of her reign. 

Leaving his couch, while yet in foldings hung 

The veil of darkness on the face of earth, 

The patriarch arose, and poured his soul 

In fervent aspiration to his God — 

And prayed for grace to stay his fainting heart, 

In its deep trial. 



44 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Strengthened and composed, 
With holy resignation on his brow, 
He left his tent ; and saddling up his beast 
Clave, in obedience to the word of God, 
Wood for a holocaust whereon his son 
Should, to the Lord, an offering be made : 
And taking servants, and the fated youth, 
Sped on his journey to the distant hills 
Of Mount Moriiih. 

Thrice the golden sun 
Had from the glowing theatre of earth 
Rolled up the curtain, bringing on the day ; 
And now the patriarch beheld, far off, 
The place appointed. Then the electric flash 
Of anguish ran, like lightning, down the wires 
Of strong paternal feeling j and his hand, 
Palsied with age and grief, smote on his breast 
In nature's sorrow : yet the gathering shade 
That clouded o'er his venerable brow. 
Like shadows chased by sunbeams, fled away 
And left it cloudless, tranquil and serene. 



Abraham's sacrifice. 45 

Now toiling up the rugged mount's ascent, 
Oft resting on his staff his hoary head, 
Ascended Abraham, bearing in his hand 
The knife and sacred fire for sacrifice — 
And by his side groaning beneath the wood, 
Pressed on his victim, staying with his hand 
The tottering footsteps of his feeble sire. 

Led on to slaughter, as the unsconscious lamb, 
Upon his father's face he turned his eye 
In dove-like innocence, and mildly said, 
" Behold the wood and fire, my father ! Where 
Is the burnt offering for the Lord, our God ?" 
The tender look of confidence, the voice. 
Soft as the echoes of an angel's hymn. 
Wakened in sorrow's tone the sleeping chords 
Of yearning nature ; and the gathering tear 
Moistened his eyelids, as the patriarch gazed 
On his devoted son ; yet grace from Heaven, 
Like oil upon the troubled ocean's waves. 
Restrained the swelling torrents of his breast ; 
And calmly he returned : " God will provide 



46 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

A victim for an offering, my son !" 

Now on the appointed mount the altar stood, 

Waiting its victim. Abraham had prayed 

Until, within his bosom, every thought 

And feeling upward rose from earth to heaven, 

Like sublimated incense ; and the glow 

Of heavenly composure, o'er his face. 

Threw the calm glories of the mid-day sun, 

As in obedience to Jehovah's word 

He bound with thongs his son for sacrifice. 

There is amid the majesty of mounts. 

Whose towering summits seem to pillar heaven, 

A sense of solitude — a loneleness 

Chill and oppressive to the awe-struck soul — 

And deeply Abraham felt it, as he stood 

Upon Moriah's heights, and saw around 

A thousand hills, rearing their azure fronts 

Above the clouds, flinging back on the plain 

The lengthened shadows of their giant forms. 

How awtul and how still was all around ! 

Hushed was the lip of every echo — voice 



Abraham's sacrifice. 47 

Was not on all the air : no rustling leaf 
Trembled upon its stem ; amid the boughs 
Tongue, pennon, plume was still ; the very clouds 
Poised their bright purple wings, and hovered o'er. 
The painful breathing of the youth, alone, 
Stole on his ears ; and as around he gazed, 
No eye was on him save the Eternal eye, 
And the broad gleam of the meridian sun, 
As on the mountain altar of the Lord 
Curtained with clouds, he stood, to pour the blood 
Of innocence — his son's — his only son's, 
In a libation to the most high God. 

The victim pressed the wood. The waxen neck 
And ivory wrists were dented with the cords 
Until the purple blood seemed bursting through 
The tissue of the pure transparent skin. 
Glowing in youthful beauty, like a rose — 
Meek as an uncomplaining lamb he lay ; 
Yet as he turned his silent eye to Heaven, 
Upon the beauteous sky and golden sun ; 
Glories that now would meet his gaze no more, 



48 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

His snowy bosom swelled with stifled sighs ; 
And from his eyelids' silken fringe the tears 
Rolled down his damask cheeks, like melted pearls. 
Oh what had severed now those holy ties 
That sweet as life and strong as death connect 
The father to his offspring ? — what had changed 
His faith to thwart the promise of the Lord, 
By offering up the son in whom that seed 
Innumerable as the stars that deck 
. The azure dome of heaven, should be called ? 
Submissively his melting heart resigned 
Its natural yearnings to the will of Heaven, 
As he remanded back its precious gift. 
In full assurance that the self same Lord, 
Who from the deadness of his loins had raised 
The son of his old age, could by a breath 
Reanimate his ashes with new life. 

Raising the fatal steel, the patriarch stood 
With eye upturned to God ; and throwing back 
The curls that clustered round his victim's neck, 
Aimed the dread blow ; when on his startled ear 



Abraham's sacrifice. 49 

A voice thrilled loudly, " Abraham ! forbear ! 
Nor stretch thy hand against the boy, to harm." 
The knife, innocuous, from his palsied grasp 
Fell suddenly ; and from his aged eyes 
.Gushed the warm tears of overpowering joy, 
As bending o'er his child he loosed his bands, 
And pressed his beating bosom to his own, 
In fervency of gratitude and love, 
Receiving him, in figure, from the dead 
An earnest of the resurrection morn — 
First-born, among his brethren, from the grave. 

Now on the altar of the Lord, a lamb, 
A substituted victim, blazed on high, 
A holocaust in ruddy spires of flame ; 
While on the incense wings of sacrifice 
Wafted arose the prayer of sire and son, 
A goodly savour to the Lord their God. 

£ 



THE FLOOD. 



The earth was corrupt before God ; and theeartli was filled with vio- 
lence. 

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me ; for 
the earth is filled with violence through them ; and behold I will destroy 
them with the earth. 

And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to de- 
stroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven ; and eve- 
ry thing that is in the earth shall die. 

Gen. VI., 11, 13, 17. 



The patriarchs slept, and o'er their virtues stole, 
Oblivion deep as rested on their graves. 
Unheeded and forgotten. From the mind 
The memory of the holy man of prayer, 
Who taught the pious multitudes to call 
Upon creation's Lord, beneath the tent 
Of the blue heaven-spread sky, had passed away, — 
Pure Enoch's counsellings — his walkAvith God, 
And bright ascent in glory's burning car. 
Were blotted from remembrance : darkly swept 
The torrent of corruption, and " the sons 
Of God" were borne along by ruin's tide. 



THE FLOOD. 51 

They lusted after pleasure, and the hours, 
That erst were spent in prayer and praise to heaven, 
What time the sun sunk o'er the western hills, 
And darkness, monitor of death, came on. 
They dreamed away in listening to the shell 
Of Jubal's daughters, or beneath the trees 
In dalliance, or in mazes of the dance, 
Joined with the jewelled maids of Tubal Cain. 

By music's witchery charmed, and every sense 
Drunk with the love of beauty, they forgot 
Their pious sires; and in the tents of sin 
Espoused the daughters of the murderous race. 
With the hot seal of heaven's displeasure stampt. 
No weary penitent, with tearful eyes. 
And feelings like a bruised reed, addressed 
His sighs to heaven ; nor on the altar laid 
The bleeding victim : nor did prayer or praise, 
At morn or evening, to the eternal throne. 
Rise with the breath of incense ; for the Lord 
' Was not in all their thoughts ; but every heart, 
E'en in th' imaginations of the mind. 
Was only evil. 



52 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY, 

In the mother's breast 
Lust maddened like a plague-spot — daughters caught 
The damning taint, and veiled, in loosened robes 
Of harlotry, their beauties. Children learned 
To troll the wanton's carol ; and the lips 
Of infants, in precocious guilt, were turned 
To sin, lisping obscenity. Rapine preyed 
Upon the widow and the orphan : Rage 
Knitted his brazen brow, and gnashed his teeth ; 
Pale Envy gnawed her thin and livid lips ; 
Dark Malice drugged his brother's cup with bane ; 
Hate struck with piercing eye his victim's soul. 
And Murder, with envenomed steel, his heart : 
War trod with iron heel upon the neck 
Of slaughtered foes, and from his nodding plumes 
Shook the red dews of death ; and Violence 
Bid Havoc speed o'er earth, till it became 
One wide and dread Aceldama of blood. 

The impious in impiety had grown 
To fearful greatness, and the perfect few, 
Who were in better days " the salt of earth," 



THE FLOOD. 53 

Had lost their savour ; and all human flesh, 

From moral taint, became a putrid mass 

That to th' Eternal's throne for vengeance called j 

Until the end of every living thing 

Came up before him. 

Amid this gloom of moral darkness, shone 

The piety of Noah, like the star 

That through the rent of heaven-involving clouds, 

Streams brilliant o'er the sable brow of night ; 

In all his generations pure, he preached 

The dignity of virtue and her joys. 

By all the eloquence of a holy life ; 

And 'mid the scoffings and the jeers of men. 

Who joyed in blasphemy and blood, proclaimed 

Truth, righteousness and judgment ; and disclosed 

As, with prophetic hand, he raised the veil 

That curtained future time, ih' uplifted arm 

Of dread Omnipotence for vengeance bared. 

But on their ears the melting words that broke 
From his full heart, fell as the idle wind ; 
And Lust still spread her rosy couch, and Sin 



54 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

With syren song lured to the feast of Crime : 
And still the tabrei sped the wanton dance, 
And the red wine cup cheered the wassail on, 
While Fate advanced, with soft and stealthy tread. 
The avenging minister of an angry God. 

The sun was at the portals of the west, 
And as the mountain summits flashed with gold, 
And the green islands lifted up their heads. 
Rejoicing in the parting smile of day, 
The patriarch stood, and then rehearsed again 
His tale of mercy. Trembling grew his voice. 
Warm gushed the tear-drops down his furrowed cheek, 
And, in an agony of woe, he tore 
His aged locks, and smote his hoary beard, 
As with the guilty race he plead in vain ; 
And saw, in Pity's fading smile, the cheek 
Of Heaven turn pale, and at the awfuLfrown 
Of God in anger, shudder and grow black. 

By fear and sacred instinct moved, the birds. 
That glance their plumage through tlie leafy grove, 



THE FLOOD. 55 

Or skim the silver surface of the deep, 

Are strangely tame ; and all the bestial tribes 

Of plain or forest, in continuous line, 

Move onward to the ark ; and there, in peace, 

Together rest — the lion with the lamb, — 

The sportive kid stretched at the leopard's side — 

While men, with reason blessed, insensate spurn 

The proffered refuge, and with fury blind 

Mock at the coming ruin. 

Safely housed, 
Within the sheltering ark, with those that God 
Has given him, the pious preacher feels 
The proffered peace his message bore, return 
To bless himself; and having proved to them 
A savour unto death, perfume his soul 
With that sweet essence which a holy life 
From every good and pious act exhales. 

How fearful is thy punishment, oh sin ! 
The awful curse of one transgression bade 
The Sun of Righteousness in Eden's grove 



56 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Go down in darkness, and the fiery sword, 

With threatening blaze, flame round the tree of life; 

Sowed on the vital air the seeds of death, 

With poisons drugged the juices of the earth. 

Displaced, for thistle and for thorn, the rose, 

And blasted with sterility the ground. 

That by the sweat wrung from his weary brow, 

Man might his bread obtain, until his frame 

Resolve to earth again — dust unto dust. 



The primal curse of sin that smote the earth. 
Was blent with mercy ; but an angry God 
For ruthless vengeance girdeth now himself, 
And lifts the arm of chastisement, oh earth ! 
That thou, throughout all coming time mayst bear. 
As a memorial of the curse of sin. 
The cicatrices of the scourge of God, 
Upon thy giant sides. 

The sun went down, 
And murky masses of black heaving clouds, 
Like undulations of the mighty deep 



THE FLOOD. 

Rolled onward by the storm, o'erspread the sky, 
Darkened the sombre twilight into gloom, 
In sackcloth veiled the pale and fearful moon, 
And hid from view the starry eyes of night. 

Round from the zenith to th' horizon's verge 
Extends the grim obscure — the funeral robe 
Of chaos for creation, o'er whose folds 
The lightning binds its girdle : warring winds. 
The strong-lunged heralds of the storm, resound 
The blast of desolation, and the sea 
And every hill and echoing mountain join 
The general wail of ruin. 

On the leaves 
The pattering raindrops fall, and then the storm 
In fury bursts, and on the quaking plain 
Pours down the red artillery of the skies. 
From pole to pole the thunder booms along 
The echoing vault — the vivid lightnings flash 
And rend the ebon reservoirs of heaven, 
That hold the watery treasures of the clouds. 



57 



58 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Down through the opening channels rush amain 
The " waters from above," upon the ground ; 
The hidden fountains of the mighty deep 
Are broken up, and the tumultuous sea, 
That stretched his boundless arms, and folded earth 
In close embrace, is maddened into foam — 
And like a bridegroom, in whose ruthless breast 
Love is exchanged for hate, turns darkly fierce 
And rends his sorrowing bride. 

As widely spreads 
The watery ruin, with the tempest's voice 
Comes from the tents of wickedness, a cry 
Of fearful anguish : there the tabret's sound — 
The feast — the dance have ceased j and o'er the cheeks 
Flushed with the wine cup and with lust, is thrown 
An ashy pallor. On the mountain tops 
Stand awe-struck myriads, and the lightning's glare 
Reveal their frantic gestures, and their hands 
Upraised lo heaven for mercy ; but the storm 
In fury waxes fiercer; — brighter gleam 
The lurid lightnings — louder roar the winds — 



THE FLOOD. 59 

The torrent thicker pours — the billowy waves 
Rise higher — o'er their banks the rivers rush 
With headlong sway — the seas outswell their shores, 
And surging high o'er hill and mountain top, 
One shoreless ocean rolls around the globe. 

But on the bosom of the watery waste, 
Safe as the infant on its mother's breast 
Lulled to a gentle sleep, the ark outrides 
The storm of ruin ; and while vengeance sweeps 
With besom of destruction o'er the earth. 
The hand of smiling mercy holds the helm ; 
And God, so darkly fiercely in wrath, illumes 
The bosoms of its inmates, with the light 
Of love and joy divine, until the dove 
Comes with her olive token, and the bow. 
Lit by the smiling presence of the Lord, 
Spans in its arch of mercy, earth and heaven. 



ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 



And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, 

Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook 
Cherith that is before Jordan. 

And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook ; and I have com- 
manded the ravens to feed thee there. 

1 Kings, xvii., 2, 3, 4. 



Through Israel's borders Famine high had rear'd 
Her spectral head, and pale-faced Hunger preyed 
Upon the vitals of all things that breathed, 
When to brook Cherith, o'er Judea's hills, 
The heaven-directed prophet bent his way. 

It was the time of harvest, but the vale 
Of sunny Israel 'neath the summer breeze. 
Curled not in waves of golden wheat. The song 
Of the glad reapers rose not. The rich grapes 
Hung not in purple clusters from the vine, 
That mourned its shrivelled tendrils ; and the fruit 



ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 61 

Blushed not upon the citron, whose dry leaves 
Gave to the winds the rustle of decay. 

Slow toiled the weary wanderer ; for his limbs 
Failed through long fasting, and his fainting head 
Drooped languidly upon his pilgrim's staff. 
Beneath the fervours of the mid-day sun. 
As o'er the desert waste he sought, in vain. 
Fruit from the bough, or water from the rill, 
To cool his fevered lips. 

The myriad stars 
Glow in the deep blue heaven, and the moon 
Pours from her beamy urn a silver tide 
Of living rays upon the slumbering earth. 
The tree-tops glitter ; through their parting boughs, 
Rocked by the night-breeze to a gentle rest, 
The moon-beams quiver, and the waves beneath 
Of the brook Cherith brighten, as they roll, 
Cooling the herbage of the thirsty banks, 
In gentle purlings, like the cheerful voice 
That glads the heart of charity. 



62 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Around 
The weary prophet gazes, and soft sleep 
Steals o'er him, as he lays his silvered head 
Upon the mossy pillow, where the trees 
Outspread the tent appointed of his God, 
Beneath the night-watch of the sentinel stars. 

The rays of morning tinged the golden east, 
And the far-streaming sunlight to his eyes 
Revealed a sere and blighted region round ; 
Yet confidence in God who spread the waste 
With manna ; and the cooling fountain poured 
From the dry rock, sustained his wavering breast 
And fervently his orisons went up. 



As on the ground with soul and sense entranced, 
He bowed him down, upon the still air came 
The rush of pennons, and the promised birds 
Subdued and tame, the heaven-directed food 
Laid at the failing prophet's bended knee. 



PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 



Apd I vill harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my 
■\vouders in the land of Egypt, 

Byt Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand up- 
on Erypt, and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of 
Israel, out of the land of Eg3pt, by great judgments. 

And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch 
forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from 
among them. 

ExoDCs VII., 3, 4, 5. 



The monarch sat upon his throne 

Of gold and flashing gem ; 
And fierce his eye of terrour shone 
Beneath his diadem ; 
And hosts stood by, in deeds of death, 
To do the bidding of his breath. 

Each soldier seized his ataghan, 
As through the marbled hall 

And palace, of an aged man 
Sounded the loud footfall, 



64 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

With solemn brow, and beard of snow 
Upon his bosom sweeping low. 

Like waves before a gallant prow, 

Before the man of God, 
Parted that host with pallid brow. 

As with uplifted rod, 
He stood erect — with unbowed knee — 
"Fear God, oh king! Set Israel free." 

Then every stream and river-flood 

That hurried by its shore, 
Rolled on, in heaving waves of blood, 

The purple tide of gore ; 
And fount and standing pool were red, 
The sepulchre of putrid dead. 

In rain and hail, while lightnings blazed, 
The tempest stooped from heaven ; 

Then upward, as his staff he raised, 
The storm was backward driven ; 

Stern was the monarch as before. 

Then burst the clouds with deafening roar. 



PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 65 

O'er earth, with desolating sway. 

The wild tornado went ; 
While palaces in ruins lay — 
With dome and battlement; 
And navies from the storm-tossed tide, 
Lay stranded by the river side. 

Still onward swept the maddening gale — 

O'er vale and mountain's crown ; 
And still the rain and driving hail 
Poured their artillery down ; 
And fruit and trees and prostrate grain, 
Like slaughtered heroes, strewed the plain. 

Yet harder waxed the monarch's heart 

Against the King of Kings ; 
Then through the land in every part 
Was heard the hum of wings — 
The locust swarm were gathered there. 
Darkening the earth and summer air. 

On every shrub and flow'ret seize. 
The ministers of wrath ; 

F* 



66 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And fruit and leaf that gem the trees, 
Vanish before their path. 
Till not a stalk or blade of green 
Through all the wasted bounds is seen. 

Up to the sky was raised that rod 

Which called its judgments down — 
Heaven shuddered at an angry God, 
And blackened at his frown ; 
And darkness o'er the regions fell, 
Rayless, and thick, and palpable. 

The earth and sky, that awful dun 

Enwrapped in funeral fold, 
Spread sackcloth o'er the radiant sun. 
And moon-beams' paly gold;, 
And veiled from the affrighted sight, 
The many twinkling eyes of night. 

The plagues of God o'er every flood 
Had passed, and every shore ; 

And every valley, mount and wood. 
Their awful record bore : 



PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 67 

But sign and judgment were in vain — 
Stili Israel wore the bondman's chain. 

Then burst on mail's devoted head 

The vengeance of his ire ; 
And o'er the bier of first-born dead, 
Bent each Egyptian sire ; 
And on the solemn midnight gale 
Was borne the mother's plaintive wail. 

Through all the land the corses lie, 

In palace and in cell ; 
And groans rose like the night-wind's sigh. 
The tears like night-dev/s fell ; 
And Pharaoh groaned, in agony,' 
"Let Israel go! The captive free." 

Tempt not thy God, oh man in power, 

By proud imaginings ! 
For every knee shull bow before 
The sovereign King of Kings ; 
And every tongue confess the Lord, 
In terror feared, or love adored. 



ETERNITY OF GOD. 



And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; 
and the heavens are the works of thy hands : 

They shall perish, but thou remainest ; and they shall wax old as doth 
a garment. • 

And as a vesture thou shalt fold them up and they shall be changed ; 
but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. 

Psalms cii., 25, 26, 27. 



The deep foundations of the earth are thine — 
Laid by thy hands Almighty, when of old 
From ancient chaos order rose, and light 
From darkness — beauty from a shapeless mass. 
A glorious orb from its Creator's hands 
It came, in light and loveliness arrayed, 
Crowned with green emerald mounts tinted with gold, 
And wearing as a robe the silver sea. 
Seeded with jewels of resplendent isles» 

The awful heavens are thine — the liquid sun, 
That heaves his fiery waves beneath thy eye — 



ETERNITY OF GOD. 69 

The ocean-fount of all the streams of light, 
That pour their beamy treasures through the wide 
Illimitable ether, watering with their rays 
The wide-spread soil, to where the burning sands 
Of dark immensity, eternal barriers throw 
Against the flowing ot their crystal streams, 
Was from the God-head's urn of glory poured. 

The stars are thine — thy charactery grand, 
In which, upon the face of awful heaven, 
Thy hand has traced, in radiant lines, thy grace, 
Thy glory, thy magnificence and power, 
For eye of man and angel to behold — 
And read, and gaze on, worship and adore. 
These shall grow old — the solid earth with years 
Shall see her sapless body shrivel up. 
And her gray mountains crumble piecemeal down 
Like crypt and pyramid to primal dust. 

The sea shall labour ; on his hoary head 
Shall wave his tresses silvered o'er with age — 
The deep pulsations of his mighty heart. 
That bids the blood-like fluid circulate 



70 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Through every fibre of the earth, shall cease ; 

And the eternal heavens, in whose bright folds, 

As in a starry vesture, thou art girt, 

Shall lose their lustre, and grow old with years ; 

And as a worn out garment, thou shalt fold 

Their faded glories, and they shall be changed 

To vesture bright, immortal as thyself. 

Yea, the eternal heavens, on whose blue page 

Thy glory and magnificence are traced, 

With age shall tarnish, and shall be rolled up 

As parchment scrolls of abrogated acts, 

And be deposited in deathless urns, 

Among the archives of the mighty God. 

Thou art the same — thy years shall never fail j 
In glory bright when every star and sun 
Shall lose their lustre and expire in night. 
Immortal all, when time and slow decay 
Imprint their ravages on nature's face ; 
Triumphantly secure, when from the tower 
Of highest heaven's imperial citadel, 
The bell of nature's dissolution tollj 



ETERNIIY OF GOD. 



71 



And sun, and star, and planet be dissolved, 
And the wide drapery of darkness hang 
A gloomy pall of sable mourning round 
Dead nature, in the grave of chaos laid. 




DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 



And when he was come near the city, he wept over it ; 

Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine 
eyes. 

For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a 
trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every 
side. 

And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within 
thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another ; because 
thou knowest not the time of thy visitation. 

Luke xix., 41, 42, 43, 44. 



He stood beside the temple. On its domes 
And garnished capitals the sunlight played. 
In chequered radiance, like the changeful hues 
That fleck the dying dolphin. At his feet 
The " city of ten thousand coluras" lay 
Basking in marbled beauty — a vast tomb — 
A whited sepulchre of living death — 
A hideous Golgotha of dead souls. 
As from the temple's height his eye looked down 
Upon the guilty millions, his full breast, 



DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 73 

As a fond mother's o'er an erring child. 
Yearned o'er the city he had failed to save, 
Like a devoted Sodom. 

His mission had been slighted — time there was 
For mercy and for penitence ; but now 
The cup of their iniquity was full, 
And e'en as on her gol'den pillars gleamed 
The fading light, the sun of peace went down 
To rise no more on Salem ; and he stood 
With pensive face, and mournful, pitying eye ; 
And as the page of future time unrolled, 
He read her guilt — her destiny — her fall — 
And o'er the coming devastation wept : 

Jerusalem ! Oh ! that to thee the time 

Of thy blest visitation, had been known, 
Then thy vast palaces, and towers sublime, 
Earth-strewn and lone, 
Had not become a seat for desolation's throne. 



74 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Peace and the things of peace from thee are hid, 

Removed for ever from thy guilty eyes ; 
And shrouded hope sleeps 'neath her coffin lid ; 
Hadst thou been wise 
Thou hadst not dared the storm of God's dread mys- 
teries. 

The sunshine of thy glorious radiance sets 

In tarnished lustre on thy beauteous home ; 
And gloom is gathering round thy minarets, 
In clouds that come 
To bathe, in fire and blood, gold pinnacle and dome. 

Foes shall beleaguer thy devoted wall, 

Thy ramparts fail — thy battlements be riven — 

The heathen shout amid thy temple's fall ; 
And fierce be driven 
The ploughshare o'er thee, of the wrath of heaven. 

Jerusalem ! how have I sought to bring 

Thy gates to gladness : Oh ! what have I done 



DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 75 

To WOO thy children under mercy's wing I 
Ah, stiff-necked one ! 
Thou hast despised my love, and art, alas ! undone. 



Sedition now the reeking blade had sheathed, 
To lift her blood-stain'd hands in prayer to heaven ; 
And from Judea's distant mounts had poured 
The living tide of votaries, to swell 
The pious pageant of the solemn feast. 
It was the hour of eve — the busy hum 
Of enterprise had ceased — still was the air, 
Each drowsy echo slumbered in its cave ; 
And the vast city's supplication rose 
In voiceless mockery of prayer, to heaven. 

Upon the ear of silence stole the sound 
Of martial music, and the distant tramp 
Of marching legions. Louder grew the peal 
And nearer, till the trump of battle rung 
In blast of death, adown the valley's side, 



76 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Startling its echoes ; and upon the top 
Of Olivet the Roman eagle waved 
Her wings above embattled legions there, 
Gleaming, amid a grove of shining spears, 
In all the golden panoply of war. 

Then shrunk the timid bosom with dismay. 
While the roused blood, like lightning, coursed 

the frame 
Of Judah's warriors, waking all their ire ; 
And in the burst of passion, was exchanged 
Worship for warfare — the soft timbrel's notes 
For the loud trump — the censer -for the sword — 
And sacrifice for murder. 

Salem's sons, 
In garb of battle, mailed proof, arrayed. 
Stood forth the guardians of the holy towers, 
Fencing the wall with palisade of spears — 
Or cooling in the fount of Roman blood 
Their thirsty falchions in the flying rout. 
Beneath the walls in wildest horror raged. 
Making sad havoc, warfare ; while within 



DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 77 

Faction, with torch infernal, lit the fires 
Of hellish anarchy, and fanned their blaze; 
Hate raised the steel against his brother's life, 
And smote ; — the battlements ran streams of gore ; 
And corses blackening in the sun, bestrewed 
The streets, by fratricidal arm struck down. 

Dire Discord flapped her wings, dripping with 
blood; 
Mad Murder raged. In their paternal halls 
Children were slaughtered in their parents' view, 
Parents, before their children ; and the steel, 
Steeped in the life-fount of the bridegroom's breast, 
Sluiced with its crimson rain the bride's white robe. 
Pious and impious fell — the man whose heart 
Gloried in slaughter and dark deeds of death, 
Vengeance o'ertook — and the meek worshipper. 
While at the altar, yielded up his life. 
E'en with the victim's, he had brought to God — 
His ephod sheltered not the priest; oppressed. 
He sunk, profaning with his blood the fires, 
His hands had kindled up for sacrifice. 



7S SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The pestilence, from between her livid lips, 
Blew poison ; and the atmospjiere was death ; 
Gaunt Famine raised her pale and spectral form. 
And Hunger, with her sharp and skeleton claws, 
Tore the pained vitals of all things that breathed. 
Whole families fell by fasting — faint arose 
The cry for bread, from children, as their tongues 
Cleaved to their husky palate 5 sucklings cooled 
Their burning lips in their dead mothers' blood ; 
Parents the morsel from their offspring wrenched, 
And mothers tore the delicate infant limbs 
Their wombs had borne, and gorged themselves 

thereon. 
All hope — all love — all pity was extinct ; 
All natural affection had grown cold, 
Benumbed by the torpedo touch of woe ; 
And as the fainting thousands fell around, 
Straining their eyeballs to the holy house, 
Their only hope, they called on Israel's God, 
And mingling prayers and curses, madly died. 

Gloom and a deadly night hung brooding o'er 



DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 79 

The fated city ; unremitting pealed 
The thunder of the engines at the wall, 
Cleaving its rocky side ; fiercely arose 
The din of battle in the deadly breach, 
The clash of arms and the victorious shout, 
As o'er the prostrate battlement the tide 
Of war rushed headlong ; and the Roman bands 
Bristling with spears, circled the house of God. 
Here hope's last anchor rested to the Jew, 
And in the expiring struggle, fury nerved 
Each arm with desperation ; fierce around 
The conflict maddened : from the temple's top, 
As from a citadel, the deadly shower 
Of darts streamed widely — and the very priests 
Poured down, in iron hail, the palisades 
Uprooted from the roof with impious hands. 

Then, when the firmness of the rocky wall 
Defied the engine's iron shock, the torch 
Raised its dread voice of vengeance, and consigned, 
To devastation's flames, the holy pile. 
Within the sacred courts, where, mid the wings 



80 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Of Cherubim that veiled the mercy seat, 

The awful presence of the Mighty sat 

In shadowy glory, sacrilegious waved 

Her plumes, the Roman eagle ; where came down, 

Upon the sacrifice the hallowed fire 

Breathing to heaven its savour, rolled on high 

The heathen brand, its clouds of smoke and flame. 

And in the holiest holy, where the foot 

Of priest with no irreverent echo broke 

The sacred stillness of th' indwelling God, 

Sounded the heavy tread of bloody feet, 

And the loud curse of battle. 

Mute despair 
Held for a time their senses as entranced ; 
But as the fiery ruin wider spread. 
One long loud voice in wildness pierced the air ; 
Mount Perea's distant tops and Olivet, 
In awful echoes uttered back the sound — 
And the insensate dying ope'd their eyes. 
Gazed wildly on the scene — summoned their 
strength 



DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 81 

Into a desperate effort — shrieked and died ! 
Fierce blazed the temple's dome — its pinnacles 
Towered up to heaven in pyramids of flame, 
Till the heaved pillars from their bases reeled, 
And the vast house of God in thunder came, 
Strewing the earth with ruins. 

Fire and sword 
Sped onward, till, of all that holy pile. 
On whose high capitals the clouds reposed, 
Whose pillars, with rich garnishing of gems. 
Poured back the sunlight in a stream of fire — 
Not e'en a solitary stone remained 
To mark the desolation. 



MOSES. 



And -vrhen she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of 
bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child 
therein. 

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river ; 
and her maidens walked along by the river's side ; and when she saw the 
ai"k among the flags, she sent her maids to fetch it. 

And when she had opened it, she saw the child ; and behold the babe 
wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the 
Hebrew's children. 

Exodus ii., 3, 5, 6. 



Darkness still held her empire, but the morn, 
With rosy fingers, from the orient hills, 
Lifted the star-embroidered veil of night, 
That hung in sombre foldings. The pale stars 
Grew dim with watching, but oppressive sleep 
Weighed not the eyelids of maternal love, 
Keeping its holy vigils. O'er the couch 
Of infancy a Hebrew mother bent 
Her head in silent anguish — her full heart. 
In that deep fervency where utterance failsj 
Sent up its aspirations ; and the tears 



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MOSES. 83 

Dripped from her silken lashes, and like pearls 
Gleamed on the tresses, that in molten gold 
bathed the fair ivory of the sleeper's neck. 

She pressed the soft lips of her beauteous boy," 
And as the dimples o'er his cherub face, 
Circled in rosy eddies of delight. 
And his warm breath, like a rich moss rose, came 
Upon her cheek, of all his infant smiles, 
Hoarded within a mother's heart, she thought — 
And of the brilliance of his deep blue eyes. 
When she had gazed into the lustrous orbs, 
Thinking to search the crystal depths of mind ; 
And felt how very cruel was the fate 
That rent the tendrils of a mother's love, 
And left the wounded sympathies to bleed. 

The last caress is over — the fair child 
Wrapt closely in his infantile attire, 
With his transparent eyelids sealed in sleep, 
Within the crib of plaited rushes lies. 
In helpless innocence. The mother's soul 



84 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Is leaning upon God, and her calm eye 
Where resignation shines, attempering all 
The burst of woman's tenderness, pursues 
The fragile bark speeding upon its way. 
Freighted with her heart's treasure, to the waves 
And scaly monsters of the Nile exposed. 

As down the stream, breasting the rippling tide, 
Fanned by the breath of heaven, it glided on. 
Now hidden by the willows — now revealed — 
The fitful colour on the mother's cheek 
Attested nature's yearnings ; but when all 
That linked his visible being to her, fled, 
The torrent of her grief refused control, 
And for the living she did wildly pour 
The passionate wail of sorrow for the dead. 



It was the hour of noon. The flaming sun 
Looked from his zenith throne with glaring eye 
And the papyrus and the asphodel 



MOSES. S5 

That fringed the river's shelving bank with flowers, 

Bent languid o'er the stream ; and every thing 

In nature drooped beneath his conquering beam. 

Flushed by the breath of the hot sultry air, 

A royal virgin came to lave her limbs 

In the cool element ; and as her maids 

Threw back the loose robes from her marbled form, 

A plaintive cry stole on the listening ear; 

And 'neath a bower of reeds, where purple flowers 

Reposed their heads upon the rocking wave. 

Within a crib of rushes was disclosed 

A Hebrew infant. 

From his languid eyes. 
Staining his lily cheek, the tear-drops gushed ; 
With sighs convulsive heaved his little breast ; 
And from between the parted lips, that thirst 
Had shrivelled like the dry leaves of a rose, 
The labouring breath, in infant cries of pain, 
Came hot and feverish. 

Fear not, thou trembling dove ! the crooked fangs 
Of the young eaglet. Lo ! its eye doth melt 
H 



86 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

In pity o'er the beauties of a form 

So delicately tender. Though the blood 

Of a stern sire, whose ruthless hand has poured 

From infant breasts the purple tide of life, 

Thermuthis in her gentle bosom hides 

The sympathies of woman, pure as dew; 

And o'er thy young devoted head shall fold 

The soft wing of protection. 

With a heart, 
Where love and gratitude for utterance strove, 
The mother folded in a long embrace 
Her rescued darling — and the boy revived 
From his faint thirstiness, and nestled close 
To the soft pillow of his mother's neck ; 
And, twining in the ringlets of her hair 
His waxen fingers, raised his tearful eyes, 
And with a smile of playful archness gazed, 
In stealthy glances, on her beaming face. 



PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 



And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, 
that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chari- 
ots and upon their horsemen. 

And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea return- 
ed to his strength when the morning appeared ; and the Egyptians fled 
against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the 
sea. 

And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen 
and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them ; there re- 
mained not so much as one of them. 

ExoDDS XIV,, 26, 27, 28. 



Day's glories are expiring. In the west 
The sun has canopied his sapphire throne 
With clouds of paly gold, whose billowy folds, 
Softened in shadow, far o'er ether blend 
With the gray tapestry of early night. 
Beneath his parting smile, the tranquil sea 
Glows like the cheek of beauty ; and his rays 
Burnish the towers of Migdol, and incinct, 
As with a crown of gold, the giant head 



88 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Of Pihahiroth, that looks grimly down. 

Like a gray sentinel upon the sea. 

In the deep shadow, like a mantle flung, 

At the broad mountain's base, the weary tribes 

Of Israel repose their aching heads — 

Or in the plashing cascade cool the limbs 

Red with the Egyptian scourge, and with the breath 

Of the hot sunbeams fevered, as their feet 

Traced with the trickling blood the desert sands. 

There is a sabbath stillness on the air, 

Sacred to holy thought and to repose ; 

And those that slumber, wander in sweet dreams 

By living fountains, where the oil and vine 

Wed their enamoured boughs— while in the hearts 

Of those, whose sturdier sinews had not sunk 

Into oblivious rest, the fount of joy 

Was gushing, as their solemn, voiceless prayer 

Went fervent up to heaven. 

Hark ! a sound 
Comes lumbering on the air — 'tis not the crash 
Of meeting pines upon the mountain's top. 



PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 8 

The rage of warring winds, nor the loud rush 
Of maddened waters 'gainst the rock-ribbed shore. 
Rise, Israel ! from your slumbers rise ! The foe 
Comes with his hosts to battle. Far and wide, 
From either mountain, wildly down the vale 
The martial tide is sweeping, with a voice 
Tumultuous as the sea — chariots and horse, 
And spearmen in the panoply of war. 
Where is your succour, Israel ? Darkly lower 
Baalzephon's battlements and Migdol down, 
Fenced with a triple palisade of spears ! 
Above you the precipitous mountain crags 
Throw their eternal barriers — the mad sea. 
Before you, lashes into foam its waves ; 
While, in the rear, the oppressor's falchion gleams. 
Bared for promiscuous murder ; till each limb 
That erst bedewed with sweat Egyptia's soil. 
Pour forth th' enriching treasure of its blood. 

Night has assumed her sceptre. The pale start 
Are in their silent watch-towers, and the moon 
Is gazing down, in sadness, through a veil 



90 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Of cloudy sackcloth, like a new-made bride 
Arrayed in widow's weeds, as on the air 
Of the still evening comes the rushing sound 
Of wild destruction's wings. Upon a rock 
That overlooked the sea, with brow unblanched 
And calm as summer evening, Moses stood. 
While stone and curse assailed him, and the shout 
Of the advancing foemen louder pealed. 
And when the aspirations of his heart 
Mounted to heaven upon the wings of faith, 
He stretched his rod upon the heaving sea, 
And with th' Eternal's delegated power. 
Issued his mandate to th' obedient waves. 

Now Israel's murmurs cease, and every eye 
Is turned upon the ocean, where the deep 
Is cleft asunder to its rocky bed, 
And the vast waters curl on either side 
Back on themselves, like parchment scrolls, and 

stand 
Immoveable as adamantine walls, 
Guarding some palace of the far down sea. 



PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 91 

The fiery column, on whose shaft were graved 

The hieroglyphics of the terrible God, 

Moving in solemn majesty, aspires 

To heaven betwixt the hosts — a hattlement 

Reared by th' Almighty's hands, from which his 

smile 
In radiance beams on Israel, and his frown 
Falls on their foes in darkness, like the folds 
Of the broad ebon bannerets of death. 
Deep awe has sealed in silence every lip, 
And filled each heart with reverence, and with step 
Slow-paced and solemn, Israel's host descend 
Into the chambers of the mighty deep, 
Lit by th' Almighty's watch-fire; and impress 
'Mid gems and rosy shells, the print of feel 
Upon the sanded pavements of the sea. 

Onward they move — still onward, in a line 
Long and continuous, till the stars of night 
Are weary in their places, and their light, 
Like beauty's eyes, with watching, has grown dim ; 
And on the mountain-tops the sober gray 



92 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Of morn hangs like a veil — then comes a sound 
Loud as the voice of thunders — 'tis the shout 
Of Egypt's hosts pursuing, and the roar 
Of their dread chariots down the rocky vale. 

Upon the further shore now Israel stood, 
And saw advancing through the sea defile 
Egyptia's warriors, like the locust swarms 
That darken all her borders. Lo ! the clouds 
Are sweeping wildly througJi the upper heaven, 
And float their sable banners to enlist 
The elements to battle. The pale stars, 
And the wan moon have muffled in dark robes 
Their fearful faces ; while in thunder peals 
The knell of desolation, and the sea 
In acclamation, utters back the sound. 

The hour of retribution now has come ! 
Howl for thy crimes, oh Egypt ! For the tears 
Of childless mothers, and the smoking blood 
Of murdered sucklings, to the throne of heaven 
Have called aloud for vengeance. Smite thy breast 



PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 93 

A bow thy head in terror, impious king ! 
For never from thy palace towers, thy eye, 
In pride, again, shall wander o'er the vale 
The dark Nile waters. And, ye warriors ! howl, 
Who thirst for blood like tigers ; for no more 
Shall ye behold the inmates of your homes ; 
Nor by their dark-eyed mothers' side, at eve. 
Drink in the music of your children's laugh 
In gambol on the cottage-shaded lurf — 
The day of doom is dawning — ere the sun 
Mount to his throne meridian, shall the pride 
Of armies perish, and the shades of death 
Despoil the gleam of diadem and spear. 

From the dark foldings of the tempest's robe, 
Chequered with stripes of living flame, the storm 
Streams in wild fury ; while along the vault 
Of echoing heaven, in deep thunder rolls 
The Almighty's car of vengeance, with red steeds 
Winged with the fiery lightning. The loud winds 
Have waked their strength to battle, and they seize 
The giant billows' samson locks — the sea 



94 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Leaps upward from its caverns, till the foam 
Falls like a silver tissue o'er the clouds — 
With swelling volume booms the fearful sound, 
As tempest-driven the roaring waves approach 
Each other o'er the watery defiles, 
Arching the way of death, and then recede 
In wild disorder. Fiercely came a cry 
Above the wind, — above the water's roar — 
Above the thunder's peal, — that awful voice 
Of anguish went to heaven, as the deep 
Resumed her wonted empire, and engorged 
In her tremendous jaws the myriad hosts, 
Polluting, with unbidden tread, her halls. 

Sunlight is on the hills. The beaming smile 
Of Deity upon the morning clouds 
Has painted blushes — the soft wooing winds 
Sport with the waves in dalliance — the green groves 
Wave their glad wings in joyance ; and the vales 
With their bright streams, and every element 
By which th' Almighty had rebuked the race. 
Stiff-necked and stubborn, look complacent on 



PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 95 

The floating bodies, darkening o'er the sea 
Like the strewed planks of shipwreck. 

Now o'er the ocean waters swelled the sound 
Of harp and timbrel, while the solid earth 
Was trembling 'neath the far-resounding peal 
Of myriad voices, as they lifted up 
The song of triumph to the mighty God, 
Whose eye had marked each burning tear that fell 
In all their bondage, — who, with arm of power, 
Had led them out, and had in anger broke 
In pieces the oppressor, when the depths 
Engulphed both' horse and rider in the sea. 




BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, 
saying, I will that thou give me, by and by, in a charger, the head of 
Joiin the Baptist. 

And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his 
head to be brought, and he went and beheaded him in prison. 

And brought his head in a charger and gave it to the damsel, and the 
damsel gave it to her mother. 

Mark vi., 25, 26, 27. 



Night with her holy cahn hung brooding. Stars, 
Like angel eyes, gazing upon the earth. 
Through heaven's broad tapestry of cloudless blue, 
Were pouring down their showers of silver light. 
And the fair moon rode in her flashing car 
Up the Empyrean steep, a queen triumphing ; 
While not a breeze fanned the soft cheek of night, 
And all the busy bustling hum of day 
Had died away into Sabbatic rest. 



BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 97 

How holy is the hour, and full of awe, 
When in the vault of heaven's high temple burn 
The starry vesper lamps j and from the earth 
Ascends the spicy incense j while with lip 
Hushed into silent reverence, nature bows 
In adoration, passing utterance all. 



Oh ! then the blessed light of heaven falls 
Upon the feverish breast like drops of dew 
Upon parched flowers ; and the exulting soul, 
Pluming its eagle pinions, soars from earth 
And basks in rays ineffably sublime ; 
Faith reads immortal truth on starry page. 
And hears sweet music from the living wires 
Of rolling spheres swept by the mighty hand 
Of vast Omnipotence. Yet grovelling man. 
Unconscious of the "glory unobscured ;" 
Dead to the living beauties, and unmoved 
By the inspiring holiness, when stars 
Shine out in radiance, and the vesper hymn 
Of nature's adoration peals, will fly 
The converse of a smiling God, and bow 
I 



98 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Amid the haunts of men, in revelry, 
His sky-born spirit to polluted shrines. 

Profaning night's deep-brooding holiness. 
And wounding her chaste ear, arose the sound 
Of bacchanalian mirth within the halls 
Of princely Herod. Gorgeously arrayed 
In royal robes, upon their damask beds 
Reclined the Chief Estates of Galilee, 
At the full board, resplendent with the glare 
Of polished silver; and while flashing wine 
Purpled their goblets, and the merry laugh 
Rung, echoing through the vaulted corridors, 
And music's lingers woke to extacy. 
The bosom's thrilling chords, a virgin came 
Bounding in lightness to the viol's sound. 
Like a bright dream of magic. 

She was rich 
In ail youth's loveliness. Her jewelled hair 
Hung o'er the marble throne of thought in folds 
Of graceful drapery, or cloud -like waved 
In curls upon hei alabaster neck. 



BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 99 

From out the fringes of the snowy lid 

Her intellectual eye its radiance sent, 

And lit with living flame her blooming cheek, 

Where smiling love amid the roses played ; 

And, parting o'er a string of pearls, her lips, 

Arching and curved, shone like the coral bow 

Whence Cupid points his darts. Her graceful form 

Its fair proportions, through her robe, revealed, 

In sylph-like beauty ; and as in the dance 

She threaded the wild maze, her presence bound 

With magic spell, while 'neath her eye's bright ray, , 

The floodtide.of each bosom gushed amain. 

As heaves the sea beneath the silver moon. 

Then broke the strain of rapture from the lips 
Of royalty — and tender of a boon 
Large, full and free, even unto the half 
Of his fair kingdom, sanctioned by an oath. 
His word — his oath, the chiefs of Gallilee 
That heard it — all constrained him ; and the king 
Sent forth the bloody mandate with the sword. 



100 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Along the prison hall, with silent tread 
The headsman stole, and ope'd the ponderous door 
That hid his victim. There the Baptist lay- 
In peaceful slumber on his couch of straw, 
With coat of skins mantling in hairy folds 
His giant form. Over his mighty brow 
Parted the treasure of his unshorn locks, 
Gracing his brawny shoulders ; and his beard, 
Like sackcloth vestment, veiled his heaving chest. 

In strength herculean lay the powerful man, 
With holy smile softening each lineament, 
As if the soul held converse with its God, 
And mounted on the eagle wing of prayer 
Up to the starry throne of the Eternal 

In reverential awe the headsman stood. 
With weapon bared, nor yet essayed to strike, 
Till o'er the sleeper's cheek the colour came 
And flushed his moving lips; then, lest the eye, 
Potent in terror, and the deep-toned voice. 
That shook Judea's mountains, should unman 



BEHEADING OF JOHN THE liAl'TIST. 101 

His wavering courage, fell the flashing stroke 
Upon the sleeping Baptist, and unsealed 
The purple fountain of the tide of life. 

The man of blood bore in the gory head 
On reeking platter, while the pallid lips 
With life still quivered, and the blanching cheek, — 
And o'er his dying eyes the lids were drawn 
Like faded violets. In the gasp of death — 
In all its lividness — in all its writhe 
Of mortal agony — with gouts of blood 
Stiffening the beard — clotting the mangled locks, 
The youthful maiden, with complacent smile 
And step of triumph, bore the bleeding head 
Unto her mother. 

Oh ! woman ! in thy tender breast we seek 
The fount of pity ; those soft sympathies 
That vibrate like a trembling chord, beneath 
The touch of woe. Beside the bed of pain 
Thou art an angel; when with pitying eye 
And noiseless tread, thy light and fairy feet, 



102 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Ministering to woe, " like golden apples shine 

In silvery pictures ;" and thy soothing voice, 

Like oil upon the ocean-billows, calms 

The tempest of the soul. But when thy heart, 

Estranged to tenderness, becomes a sea 

Of selfishness, icy and frozen, where 

Pity's magnetic needle trembles not; 

And sorrow's wail falls lightly on thy ear ; 

And misery's garb unheeded meets thy sight — 

And deeds of horror — and the guilt of blood !— 

Thou art a monster ! 

Though thy speaking eye 
Outflash the sun, thy cheek outblush the rose. 
Thy voice outswell the spheres — thy golden hair 
Outgleam the sunlight ; and, although thy step 
Be prouder than th' ungovernable sea ; 
And though thy mind with jewelled thoughts be rich 
As heaven, with all its garniture of stars, 
Thou art a monster — to thy sex-, thy name, 
Thy nature, and thy God. 



THE CAPTIVITY. 



By the rivers of Babylon we sat down ; yea we wept when we remem 
bered Zion. 

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 

For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; 
and they that wasted us, required of us mirth, saying. Sing us one of the 
songs of Zion. 

Psalm cxxxvii., 1, 2, 3. 



The reign of day was ended, and the night 
Succeeded to her empire — ^not with eye 
Of peerless lustre, and a cheek all smiles ; 
But wan and sickly, with embrowning shades 
Darkening the radiance of her starry cheek, 
As sombre musings cloud the pensive face 
Of uncomplaining beauty, when the heart 
Is crushed with woe, and memory's busy hand 
Perturbs the slumbering waves of sorrows past. 

As o'er proud Babel's domes and heaven-piled 
tower 



104 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The clouds hung like a pall, and shadowy fell 

The melancholy light upon the Avaves, 

In which the willows steeped their w^eeping boughs, 

Like drooping mourners with dishevelled hair, 

The weary captives felt congenial gloom, 

And in their bosoms every trembling chord. 

In unison with nature, was attuned 

To sorrow's low and melancholy plaint. 

Upon the breeze of evening came the sound 

Of mirth and gladness from their heathen foes. 

Who revelled in their palaces of pride ; 

While Zion, by their cruel hate despoiled, 

Was left in ruins, and her daughters borne 

Far from her soft and sunny clime, bedewed 

The bitter bread of slavery with their tears. 

Beside Euphrates' turbid stream they sat, 
A band of wanderers, with their aching brows 
Supported on their pale and wasted hands — 
While their neglected tresses, like a veil 
Of mourning, fell in folds around their necks ; 
And as the thoughts of home and former joys 
Came crowding up, they poured the lay of woe, 



THE CAPTIVITY. 105 

While on the willow boughs their unstrung harps. 
Swept by the fingers of the breeze of night, 
Symphonious echoed to the mournful sound. 

The foes that compassed Salem's fall, 
And laid her altars low ; 

That hurried into foreign thrall 
Her daughters, steeped in woe: 
E'en while the tears of anguish flow. 

Add mockery to our slavish wrongs, 

And call for one of Zion's songs. 

Can we, when heathen tongues demand, 

The songs of gladness raise. 
We chanted in our fathers' land, 

Unto Jehovah's praise ? 

Or waken into tuneful lays 
Our slumbering harps, with chords unstrung, 
Upon the mournful willows hung ? 

If I, Jerusalem ! forget 

Thy sorrows and thy cruel wrong, 
Until the sun of memory set; 



106 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 



Or swell, for heathen mirth, the song. 
Then withered be the arm that long 
Has swept the echoing chords with skill : — 
Be sealed my tongue in silence still. 

Remember Edom's sons, oh Lord, 
Who rased thy temple to the ground; 

Let Babel reap her just reward, 

And weep her sucklings slaughtered round ; 
Then shall our tuneful harps resound 

The joyful triumph of the free, 

And swell for Salem and for thee. 




DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 



The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. 

Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire 
fi-om tlie Lord out of heaven. 

And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabit- 
ants of those cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 

Genesis xix., 23, 24, 25. 



Night's death-like reign was o'er — its pulseless 
sleep, 
And streams of light, like purple currents, flushed 
With a new lite, the morning's cold, pale cheek j 
The sun rode up the orient, and the hills, 
To herald in the king of day, had lit 
Their thousand beacons — the fair sky unfurled 
Her cloudy bannerets of rosy folds — 
The dewy earth arrayed herself in gems 
To greet his coming; and upon the air, 
Rich with the perfumes which the spicy flowers 
Shook from their crimson censers, rose the peal 



108 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Of nature's anthem ; while each mount and stream 
That met his glance, reflected back his smiles. 

Outstretched in loveliness, the fertile plain 
Of Sodom lay, with many a laughing stream, 
Like merry children, sporting o'er its glade ; 
And Jordan, with its mass of living waves, 
The forms of queenly cities mirroring — 
Encircled with their crowns of golden towers, 
All smiling in security, while earth 
And silent heaven were slowly marshalling 
Their myrmidons of ruin, to descend. 
With storm of war, and blot with fire and blood, 
From nature's page, the guilty realm where reigned. 
Bloated with crime, Pollution, on his throne 
Of darkness seated. 

From the couch of lust, 
Mad with the wine-cup and the night's debauch, 
Came forth the sons of pleasure ; and their songs, 
And obscene pseans, rose on heaven's pure air. 
Like pestilence, hailing in another day 



DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 109 

Of guilty dalliance — as if death were sleep. 

And life a giddy dream of guilty joy : 

And that, because the night still smiled with stars, 

The day with sunlight, and the plains with fruits, 

The eye of God looked not in anger down, 

Nor registered their calendar of crimes. 

But soon the slumbering breeze awoke, and shook 

Its sounding pinions ; — trembling Jordan shrunk 

Into his inmost caves — the pallid sun, 

Behind his veil of sable clouds, withdrew, 

And desolation's darkness brooded o'er. 

Anon, the clouds shook from their ebon plumes 

Dew-drops of flame ; the baleful lightning rained 

Its lurid hail of brimstone and of fire, 

In ceaseless storm, and heaven's artillery poured 

Its storm of thunder on the smoking plain ; 

And city — forest — shrub, and e'en the ground. 

In the great censer of the wrath of God, 

Went up to heaven in flame ; 

The earthquake raised 
His voice of fury, and the trembling hills 
Came toppling from their rocky pedestals ; 

K 



1 10 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And then a crash was heard, as if the ribs 
Of earth were crushed beneath the iron car 
In which Jehovah rolled, in fury, by ; 
And as the thunder boomed a funeral knell 
O'er the dark grave the giant earthquake dug, 
Shrouded in winding sheet of fire, went down 
The flaming city, with its blazing towers, 
To endless Tophet. 

Slowly rolled away 
The sulphurous canopy of clouds, that hung, 
Like desolation's wings, stretched o'er the plain- 
Herbless and treeless — manless was the vale 
Of fertile Sodom ; — all a watery waste — 
A dark, lethean lake of guilt and blood, 
Whose turbid waters, like the troubled breasts 
Of its vile denizens, that ceaseless stirred 
The sediments of sin, pollute the shores 
With darkness and the lurid filth of pitch. 



RAISING OF THE WIDOW'S SON. 



Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city there was a dead man 
carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow ; and much 
people of the city was with her. 

And when the Lord saw her he had compassion on her, and said unto 
her, Weep not. 

And he came and touched the bier ; and they that bare him stood still. 
And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, rise. And he that was dead 
sat up and began to speak ; and he delivered him to his mother. 

Luke vii., 12, 13, 14, 15. 



The moon was up, and bathed in splendour bright 

High gilded dome, and battlement and tower, 

And rained her light, like silver, on the waves, 

That calmly slept, of Galilee's blue sea. 

The balmy breeze, laden with fragrance, bland 

From myrrhine shrubbery and citron groves, 

And exhalations of the spicy earth. 

Came in refreshing waves to bathe the limbs, 

And feast the sense with odorous perfume. 

Immersed in gloomy thought the widow sat. 

Nor saw the splendours of the vaulted sky. 



112 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Nor felt upon her burning brow the breeze, 

That, whispering through the tendrils of the vines, 

Clustering, around its lattice, came to cool 

And vivify her sorrow-shaken frame. 

A dimly burning lamp threw its pale light 

Upon the paler features of her child — 

Her son, the comfort of her widowed years, 

Sole pledge of mutual love, lay on his couch, 

The gathering tears slow-rolling from his eyes 

O'er which the death-film gathered for the fate 

Of her who gave him being — who had watched 

His helpless infancy with anxious eye, 

And whose infirmities demanded, now, 

A kindlier care than the grudged charities 

Of a cold, harsh, unsympathetic world. 



" Mother !" " My son !" And o'er his couch she stood. 
In infinite despair. The glassy eye. 
The pupil o'er its orb distending wide. 
The painful breathings of his brawny chest, 



RAISING OP THE WIDOw's SON. 113 

And the mysterious liv^idness of death 

Brooding upon his features pale, proclaimed 

The mournful hour of dissolution near. 

Her withered arms the weeping widow threw 

Around the neck of her departing son, 

And mourned in agony, while heavy sobs 

Shook every fibre of her tottering frame ; 

And he essayed, while in the lamp of life 

The light still flickered, with a soothing voice, 

Her wounded spirit to bind up and heal. 

" God stay thy sorrows, mother ! and raise up 

A friend unto thee, who, with filial care, 

Shall cherish thee, and smooth life's rugged path, 

Till thou shalt slumber in the peaceful tomb." 

As o'er his dying couch the widow stood. 
She pressed her shrivelled lips to his, and felt 
Them cold and clammy — saw his soft blue eyes, 
That oft had beamed so fondly on her, closed 
In death's deep slumber, ne'er to open more — 
And heard the bursting of that tender heart. 
Whose every pulse beat warm with filial love. 



114 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Youth is life's springtide ; and although its hopes 
Be crushed beneath the iron heel of woe. 
They germ again, and the bruised spirit stands, 
From elasticity, erect and firm. 
Not so with age : The wintry storm of woe 
Shakes the last leaf from hope's lone arid bough ; 
And then the wounded soul, brooding in tears 
O'er utter desolation, falls alone. 
She was alone, childless and friendless ; and she bent 
Her head in sorrow ; and the passionate wail 
Of lamentation rose upon the air. 

" Art thou, my beautiful ! forever gone, 
Who stanched the current of my widowed tears; 

Who shed a light, life's wintry storms upon. 
And stood the pillar of my failing years ? 

Oh ! art thou gone ! thou gentle-hearted one ! 

My first — my last — my loved, my only son ! 

Yes, thou art gone ! and as a princely prize. 
Is won thy manly beauty by the grave ; 



RAISING OF THE WIDOW's SON. 115 

And sealed forever are thy death-glazed eyes, 
O'er which the golden tresses gently wave j 
Gone are the roses from thy forehead fair, 
And paleness reigns, and deathly dampness there. 

Oh, I had hoped that thou, my son ! wouldst close 
These dying eyes, and weep my final doom; 

When this lone widowed heart, oppressed by woes, 
Be gathered to its resting place — the tomb ; 

And sometimes visit the sequestered spot, 

Where sleeps thy mother's dust, by all the world 
forgot. 

But like unripened fruit, before its time, 
Thou art hoarded in the granary of death ; 

Fallen in thy beauty ere thy manhood's prime — 
How would I joy to yield this labouring breath, 

And lay beneath the turf my weary head, 

With thee, my son ! amid the silent dead." 

Morn broke, and with it came the glorious sun, 
Flushed, as it were, with vigour from repose ; 



116 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

His fiery axle on ihe mountain tops 
Shed its red beams, illumining in gold, 
In purple, and in crimson, the fair clouds 
Floating like banners opened to the breeze, 
And studding, as with gems, the dewy shrubs 
That spread their painted petals to his rays. 
The purling streams, meandering through sweet 

groves, 
Seem'd, with their borders of rich green enclosed, 
Like silvery pictures edged with velvet round; 
Amid the dew-bespangled boughs, the birds 
Of golden plumage glanced their wings, and tuned 
Their throats to melody. The earth, the sky, 
Shrub, flower and tree, and every insect smiled 
With a redundancy of life and joy. 

Dark to the mourner was the glorious morn, 
With its bright sunshine and prismatic hues ; 
Dreary and void the wide and fertile earth. 
With its gay prospects — herbage, fruits, and flowers. 
The light that cheered her darksome soul was out ; 
The sun that gave its light and hues to all 



RAISING OF THE WIDOW's SON. 117 

Earth's fairy prospects, had forever set ; 
And destitute and lonely, wrapt in grief, 
She looked upon the features of the dead 
With earnest gaze, before the funeral shroud 
Enwrapt him from her, and her cherished one 
Be carried out to his eternal home. 

The corpse is shrouded, and is borne along, 
In slow procession, to the city gate. 
The sorrowing mother, bent beneath the weight 
Of years and woe, in sable garments clad. 
Follows with mournful step the moving bier, 
And as, at every tread, the heart-wrung tears 
Course down the channel of her furrowed cheeks, 
A voice of melody steals on her ear, 
Thrilling each shattered nerve — "Woman! weep 
not !" 

The bier stood still ; the widow's eyes grew 
Sight, strength, sensation left her; to the ground 
The mourner sunk, bewildered and amazed. 
Sensation came. Her son, clothed with his shroud, 



118 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Bent over her — and the Eternal God, 
Who holds the keys of hell and death — 

With smiles 
Of heavenly sweetness beaming on his face. 
He changed the fount of tears to one of joy, 
Presenting to her, her lamented son 
Restored to life — to her embrace maternal. 

Weep not, oh widowed mothers ! when the pall 
Of death is round your offspring, and the barbed 
And rankling iron enters in the soul ; 
For he who at the gates of Nain beheld 
And stanched the flowings of a mother's heart, 
Is pitiful of nature, and will wipe 
The tear-drops from the eyes, and calm the grief 
Of those who lean upon his loving arm — 
And will restore their children to a life 
Of better promise, in that goodly land 
Where sorrows cease and death is all unknown. 



DEATH OF SAMSON. 



Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the 
Philistines were there ; and there were upon the roof about three thou- 
sand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. 

And Samson called upon the Lord, and said, Oh, Lord God ! remem- 
ber me, I pray thee, only this once, oh God ! that I may be at once 
avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. 

And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house 
stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and 
of the other with his left. 

And Samson said. Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed him- 
self with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all 
the people that were therein. 

JoDGES XVI., 27, 28, 29, 30. 



Within Philistia's princely hall, 

Is held a glorious festival ; 
And on the fluctuant ether floats, 
The music of the timbrel's notes, 
While living waves of voices gush — 

Echoing among the distant hills. 
Like an impetuous torrent's rush. 
When swollen by a thousand rills. 



120 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The stripling and the man of years, 
Warriors with twice ten thousand spears, 
Peasants and slaves and husbandmen — 
The shepherd of the mountain glen, 
Vassal and chief, arrayed in gold 

And purple robes — Philistia all 
Are drawn together, to behold 

Their mighty foeman held in thrall. 

Loud pealed the accents of the horn 
Upon the air of that clear morn ; 
And deafening rose the mingled shout, 
Cleaving the air, from that wild rout ; 
As guarded by a cavalcade, 

The illustrious prisoner appeared ; 
And 'mid the grove the thick spears made, 

His forehead like a tall oak reared. 

He stood with brawny shoulders bare, 
And tossed his nervous arms in air ; 
Chains, leathern thongs, and brazen bands, 
Parted like wool within his hands ; 



DEATH OF SAMSON. 121 

And giant trunks of gnarled oak 

Splintered and into ribands rent ; 
Or by his iron sinews broke, 

Increased the people's wonderment. 

The amphitheatre, where stood 
Gazing the mighty multitude. 
Rested its long and gilded walls 
Upon two pillars' capitals. 
His withered arms with labour spent, 

He threw around the pillars there ; 
And to the deep blue firmament 

Lifted his sightless orbs in prayer. 

Anon the columns move — they shake, 
Totter and vacillate, and quake ; 
And, wrenched by giant force, come down. 
Like a disrupted mountain's crown, 
With cornice, frieze and chapitre — 

Girder and gilded dome and wall, 
Ceiling of gold and roof of fir, 

Crumbled in mighty ruin all. 

L 



122 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 



Down came the structure; on the air 
Uprose in wildest shrieks, despair, 
Rolling in echoes loud and long, 
As sent from that crushed myriad throng ; 
And Samson, with the heaps of dead. 

Priest — vassal — chief, in ruin blent, 
Piled over his victorious head 

His sepulchre and monument. 




BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 



Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the house 
of God that was at Jerusalem ; and the king and his princes, his wives 
and his concubines drank in them. 

They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, 
of iron, of wood and of stone. 

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over 
against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace ; 
and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. 

Daniel v., 3, 4, 5. 



'TwAs night, and Babylonia's waters slept 
In silent beauty, mirroring the beams 
That poured like molten silver from the urn 
Of white-robed Cynthia. Not a breath of air 
Stirred the soft foliage of the leafy reeds, 
Or the long willow boughs, that graceful hung, 
Like weeping mourners, o'er the moonlit waves. 
The golden fish that gambolled in the stream, 
Plashing the silvery spray like tiny gems, 
Had all retired within their watery cells j 
No sound was heard of all the insect train, 



124 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Whose golden-tinted wings had glanced in life 
And joyance through the summer air, and wheeled. 
In mazy round, from tempting flower to flower ; 
The bell and petals of the flowers themselves 
Were folded up in nature's soft repose, 
Like the fair wings that fluttered round their sweets, 
All — all was still — save man, the reveller. 

From the high dome of Babylonia's king 
A thousand golden lamps flamed radiantly. 
Illumining the high arabesque roof. 
Studded with sparkling brilliants and rich gems. 
The porphyry fluted pillars, and the urns 
Of gold-specked porcelain, rife with choicest flowers, 
And gods of gold, of silver, iron, brass. 
And wood and stone, that sat in marble niche. 
Each god on consecrated tripod placed. 

Before the statues festive spice-rods burned. 
Rolling the incense in great dusky spires, 
That filled the house with odorous perfume. 
To the gay pageant musick lent its charms : 



belshazzar's feast. 125 

Flute, sackbut, tabret, dulcimer and harp 

Mingled their notes in soft, mellifluous strain, 

As the light sandals of the liveried page 

Slid o'er the marble pavement, in the dance. 

Wheeling in mazy circle to the gaze 

Of the proud king, his thousand lords and wives. 

Amid the hall the festive board was spread, 

The silver platter and the golden vase, 

With delicacies piled and choicest viands ; 

And round it, on their damask couches raised, 

The bacchants — higher than the rest, Belshazzar j 

And as in lordly state pre-eminent — 

E'en so in boisterous revelry and mirth : 

" Bring forth the vessels of the Jewish shrine, 

Judea's God shall bow for once to-night ; 

Fill high with wine the consecrated cups, 

Drink full libations to the mighty gods 

Of old Assyria." 

To the skies a shout 
Rose wildly, as the sacied cups were brimmed 
With the unholy wine to heathen gods ; 



126 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And as Belshazzar impiously proclaimed 
The full libation— on the opponent wall 
Came forth the fingers of a giant hand, 
And wrote upon the solid, stuccoed wall, 
As if on sand, strange characters. 
Like curdled blood, his phrensied eye beheld 
The purple juice ; and from his nerveless hand. 
As lightning-struck, the sacred goblet fell ; 
His loins were loosened, and his palsied knees 
Each other smote, in horror and dismay ; 
And with a feeble, faltering voice, he cried, 
" Bring in the Chaldee sage, the men of lore, 
The astrologer, and deep-read magi bring." 

And soon the venerable men appeared, 
The men of lore, upon whose aged busts 
The snowy beard, like a long mantle, flowed. 
Diverse their garments : Some, a flowing robe 
Of black, wore loose, a golden sun emblazed ; 
Some, robes of white with hieroglyphics traced 
Of hidden lore — the mysteries of years ; 
While some a mantle girt of yellow hue, 



127 



Three eyes embossedj whose different vision scans 

The distant future, — present and the past. 

The silver wand of dark astrologer, 

Some bore, and some, three sacred globes of gold ; 

The ophite had his serpent : some had crypts. 

Upon the furrowed lineaments of all 
Sat awful wisdom — on their foreheads stamped, 
Indelibly, the seal of powerful mind. 
Upon the dread, mysterious hand their eyes 
Were rivetted, and on the awful lines, 
Whence radiated light like lightning's blaze — 
But darker grew the mystery, as they gazed, 
Until their thought-strained eyes dilated grew — 
But vain : the golden globe had lost its power, 
The silver wand its impotence confessed -, 
The white-robed magi waved their golden snakes, 
And waved in vain. Confounded all — the men 
Of hidden mystery and profound research 
Shrunk back aghast and viewed the portent dread. 



128 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And Daniel spoke :~-" Thy many gifts, oh king ! 

Be poured upon another, though my tongue, 

Lit by the fire of prophecy, unfold 

The fearful mystery of the awful lines. 

Know then, oh ! kind, the most high God did give 

The king, thy father, majesty and power, 

Before which tongues and nations from afar. 

Trembled with awe, and deepest reverence gave ; 

And whom he would his power doomed to death : 

The men, he would exalt, like cedars rose. 

Gracing the front of lofty Lebanon, 

And whom he would put down, he swept from earth 

With the wild whirlwind of his furious breath ; 

But when his soul was lifted up — his mind 

Hardened in pride against the living God — 

Entirely prone to evil -, from his throne 

Forth was he driven — all his glory gone ; 

The coronet no more his brows adorned — 

His bust, the purple ; and his royal hand 

The regal sceptre grasped no more, in pride. 

From the sons of men forth was he driven 

To the desert fields — his heart the heart of beasts — 



eelshazzar's feast. 129 

His dwelling, theirs. With the wild mountain ass 
He made his lair, and on the grassy plain 
Browsed with the oxen ; and the vocal dell 
Rung with their lowings, mingled with his moan. 
Above his head the pitiless tempest howled ; 
His hoary hairs bristled with the cold frost, 
And with the rain and dews of heaven were drenched, 
Until he knew that God the highest ruled 
Supreme in heaven, and chiefest in the earth. 
And thou, his son, Belshazzarl knewest this, 
And hast not humbled thee before the Lord, 
But lifted up thy heart against his power — 
And brought the vessels of his holy house 
For thee, thy lords, thy concubines and wives. 
With heathen wine most impiously to pollute ; 
And praised the gods of silver, gold and brass, 
Which see not, hear not, know not — and the God 
In whose hands is thy breath — who seeth thy ways. 
Thou hast not glorified, but spurned and dared. 
Hear now the interpretation of the words 
That he has traced against thee, impious king ! 
Mene, thy kingdom, God, in fearful wrath, 



130 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Hath numbered, and forever hath destroyed. 
TekeLj thy soul is weighed and wanting found; 
The grave yawns for thee, justice draws her sword. 
Peres, thy empire's parted — o'er thy walls 
The Mede shall float his banner to the breeze, 
And on thy jewelled throne the Persian sit. 
And sway the rod of empire o'er thy realm ; 
While thou, pierced by his sword, of all bereft, 
Thy kingdom, life and glory, give to earth. 
Thy delicate body and thy naked soul, 
Distained in guilt, to the eternal streams 
That rain forever, from the awful vials 
Of fiery vengeance of a God incensed." 

Thus spake the prophet; and before the domes 
Of Babylonia's palace flashed with light, 
Its halls with blood were reeking, and around 
The midnight revellers were strewed; while he, 
Who gloried in the wantoness of crime. 
And had, in sacrilegious mirth, defied 
The Omnipotent, had gone to his reward. 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 



Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thy- 
self. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself. 

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadestme to be a Chris- 
tian. 

Acts XXVI., 1,28. 



Before the judgment seat, circled with spears 
Of grim-faced warriors, see the man of God ! 
Although the scrutinizing eye of kings 
Searches each lineament, as if to scan 
The workings of his soul, he calmly stands. 
Like some colossal column, which the clouds, 
Darkened with thunder, lower upon in vain. 

Upon his festered wrists the galling chains 
Of persecution sound ; yet from his eye 
And from his radiant features breathes a soul 
Undaunted — unsubdued and free — 
A spirit strong in conscious innocence, 



132 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. i 

And truth divine, girded with holy hope. 

While high upraised his scornful judges sat, 

Anxious to hear " the founder of strange Gods." 

With reverent obeisance, and with grace 

Of utterance and diction, the accused 

" Stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself.'^ 

In simple phrase, he sketched his pious youth ; 
How zealous of the duties of the law — 
Its rites and ceremonies — he had lived 
"A Pharisee after the strictest sect;" 
And how, in after years, when growing thought 
Had ripened into judgment, he had stood 
At the renowned Gamaliel's feet, and conned 
The Talmud scroll, and the mysterious lore 
Of ancient doctors, with unwearied mind, 
Spinning a lengthened line of years of thought. 
The depth to fathom of the mighty pool 
Of moral science. 



Then, as the tears stole o'er his flushing cheek 
He spoke of his enthusiasm wild ; 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 133 

How of traditions zealous, he opposed 
The name of Jesus, — him of Nazareth — 
And his meek followers pursued with death 
And persecution unto cities strange — 
How he had seen the purple life-blood spout 
Up from the thousand fountains, made by stones 
Cast by the murderous multitude — his voice 
Giving against them — sealing their dark doom ; 
And how, when journeying to Damascus, sent 
With full commission from the bloody priests 
To bind and scourge and torture, that a light 
From the clear heaven, above the noonday sun, 
Gleamed 'round him and his iron-mailed band. 
Like lightning, suddenly, and strewed the earth 
With horse and rider ; while a solemn voice, 
From high Empyrean, broke upon his ear : 
" Why dost thou persecute me, Paul ? Avhy dare 
The heavy bosses of Jehovah's shield 
With puny shaft ? Rise, stand upon thy feet ! 
I, Jesus, whom thou persecutest, send 
Thee to the Gentiles, to unseal their eyes, 
Turn them to light from darkness, and to God 

M 



134 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

From serving Satan, that they may receive 
Forgiveness of their sins through faith in me.'' 

And as he spoke of Jesus, his warm heart 
Swelled with delight unutterably full ; 
His kindling eye shone with unearthly light ; 
And eloquence, strong as a torrent stream, 
His glowing features lit with living flame. 
His sonorous voice rung through the vaulted hall 
Like music, as he dwelt upon the hope 
Of promise to the ancient patriarchs made. 
And drew forth, link by link, of that gold chain 
Prophetic, which unbroken, down| from man 
Primeval, stretched to Jesus, in the heap 
Of types and shadows hid, and with the dust 
Of ages long gone by, obscured and dim; 
And, by resistless demonstration, proved 
Jesus the Christ in very deed ; the hope 
Of Israel, and the Saviour of the world ; 
" Counsellor Wonderful" — " The Prince of Peace"- 
" The Eternal Father"—" The Almighty God !" 
And as he traced him from liis bed of straw, 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 135 

Curtained by angel wings, up to his cross. 

O'er which, shrouded in black, the heavens hung. 

Glorious in all his acts, Godlike and grand. 

Healing the sick — making the maimed, the lame 

Leap with returning action — pouring light 

Upon the sightless eyeballs of the blind — 

And bidding life reanimate the dead : 

The Gentile king caught from his hallowed lips 

The glow of admiration of the might 

And majesty of Jesus j and his heart. 

On which the light of heaven began to dawn. 

Forgot his heathen idols in the God 

Omnipotent, proclaimed in mighty truth ; 

And while the resurrection and ascension came, 

Sanctioned by reason, opening up the gates 

Of life eternal and the joys of heaven. 

In the o'erflowings of a wounded heart, 

Subdued in every thing, except its pride — 

He cried — " Thou hast almost persuaded me 

To be a Christian." 



136 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The voice of the accused now died away ; 
And silence reigned amid the judgment hall ; 
They who had come to listen to the sound 
Of babbling nonsense, or the maniac rant 
Of mad enthusiasm, stood confused. 
And gazed upon each other vacantly, 
As men bewildered, while they, one and all, 
Read in his features, in his words and tone, 
His innocence ; and deep conviction felt, 
As with meek step and uncomplaining eye. 
He sought again the dungeon, he had done 
Nothing that merited or death or bonds. 

Oh I blessed Faith, that in this world of woe 
Refreshes, with an antepast of heaven. 
The fainting spirit ; and infuses peace 
Amid the turmoil of lifes's wintry winds. 
And confidence and triumph, when the rack 
And chains array their terrors ; and the torch 
Of persecution lights her demon fire. 



LOOK NOT ON WINE. 



Look not upon the wine -when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the 
cup. 

PR0VERr,s xxni., 31. 



Look not on wine ; although the cup 
Be crimsoned with its ruby stain ; 

Look not — -'tis filled with wormwood up, 
And blood, and burning tears of pain:— 

Its flash is as the red bolt's glow, 

Lighting the paths of death and woe. 

Look not on wine : Circean spell 
Is breathed upon the purple grape ; 

Changing to phantoms horrible 

The godlike mind, the godlike shape, 

And dooming with its poisonous breath 

The soul to e^^erlasting death. 



138 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Look not on Avine : its rainbow glow 
Reflected is from falling tears ; 

But ah ! it is no peaceful bow 

Of promise, in life's storms and fears — 

But is a messenger of wrath, 

A fiery meteor on life's path. 

Look not on Avine ! Oh, who can tell 
The victims of its Moloch shrine ; 

Or speak the soul-destroying spell 

That mantles o'er the clustered vine — 

The withered hearts — the glories fled — 

The tears — the blood, that it has shed. 

Look not on wine ! Your ruddy youth, 
Oh ! barter not, and spotless fame. 

And conscious dignity and truth, 
For premature old age and shame — 

And heaven, and hope, and all that's thine, 

For short-lived joys. Look not on wine 1 




;iMIII'3?HM© TJSm la©©!^ 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 



And wherefore have ye made ns to come up out of Egypt, to bring us 
unto this evil place ? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of 
pomegranates ; neither is there any water to drink. 

And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the 
rock, and he said unto them. Hear now, ye rebels ; must I fetch you wa- 
ter out of this rock ? 

And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock 
twice ; and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, 
and their beasts also. 

Numbers xx.,5j 10, 11. 



No former miracles that shed 
Upon the desert, streams and bread. 
Inspired with confidence or grace 
The faithless and the wicked race. 
Oppressed with thirst, with hunger faint, 
They vented murmur and complaint. 
" Why bring ye, to this barren coast 
Of heat and sand, our weary host; 
Where neither fruit nor golden grain, 
Appears through all the desert plain — 



140 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

No bough on which pomegranates shine, 
Nor figs, nor clusters of the vine ; 
Where sparkles neither fount nor pool 
The thirst to slake — the brow to cool. 
"Why bring us to this land to die ? 
Egypt had graves wherein to lie." 
Their leaders, then, in anguish, bowed 
Their faces down, and mourned aloud. 
Until, from out the light that broke 
Around, the voice of God thus spoke: 
" Smite with the rod : the flinty rock 
Shall pour its streams for man and flock." 

Then with the consecrated rod, 

Which curse or blessing brought from God, 

Toiled Moses up the pathless wild 

Of rocks, in sullen grandeur piled, 

While all the host was gathered round. 

By hope or fear in silence bound. 

*' Why will ye murmur ? Has the ear 

Grown heavy that was wont to hear ; 

Or shortened is the mighty hand, 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 141 

That brought you from oppression's land ? 
That manna o'er the desert spread, 
And streams of living waters shed ? 
Why tempt the Lord? Lift up your eyes ! 
The self-same hand your want supplies : 
The bounty of his grace receive — 
Behold ! ye rebels, and believe ; 
Behold !" and fell with jarring shock, 
Th' uplifted rod upon the rock ; 
And inwardly was heard the rush 
Of prisoned waves, in gurgling gush, 
Impatient to escape their bound, 
And wander free, the plains around. 

With pleasure tingles every ear. 

As the refreshing sound they hear; 

And every upraised eye is bright, 

And laughing with hope's pure delight. 

The rod again descends — the rock 

Its portal opens at the shock ; 

The stream leaps from its mountain home, 

With voice of rage and crest all foam, 



142 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And thunders down the precipice 

In cataracts, that part and hiss. 

And murmur ; and, in shining rills, 

Slow winding, sigh among the hills. 

As broke the waters forth, amazed, 

The eye and voice to heaven some raised j 

Others with folded arms stood dumb. 

In speechless gratitude ; while some, 

In extacy of rapture, laughed, 

As with delirious joy they quaffed 

The bubbling streams the fountain poured. 

Which fainting man and beast, restored. 

Ye v/anderers through this wilderness. 
Bowed down with sorrow and distress. 
Go, when the head is sick — when faint 
The heart breathes out its mournful plaint ; 
And fevered with earth's cares and strife. 
Is panting for the streams of life— 
To the great Archetypal fount 
Of that which flowed in Horeb's mount, 
And in the wilderness of Zin ; 
And drink till all is heaven within. 



THE PRODIGAL. 



And -when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my 
father's liave bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! 

I will arise and go to my father, and will say nnto him, Father, I have 
sinned against heaven and before thee : 

And a"m no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy 
liircd servants. 

And he arose and came to his father. But when he was a great way 
off, his lather saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck 
and kissed him. ' 

LuKEXV., 17, 18, 19,20. 



The noontide air was sultry, and the sun 
Poured down in flame his burning vertical rays, 
The fiowrets hung their fainting heads, and shrubs 
Drooped 'neath his radiance ; and each withered 

bough ; — 
And birds, beasts, insects — every living thing 
Sought shelter from the fierce meridian heal. 

The Prodigal was weary ; he had toiled 
Amid the desert sands, with hunger faint, 



144 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And with that feverishness of soul that comes 
From deep misfortunes joined with conscious guilt, 
Weighing with weariness the spirit down. 
Beneath the spreading branches thrown at large, 
Oblivion slole upon him; and in sleep 
He wandered to his far, far distant home, 
Dear to his heart by twice ten thousand ties. 

There is a magic in the name of home 
Felt in the spirit's yearning : man may roam 
Careering on his wild and thoughtless way, 
Like the mad, untamed comet from the sun ; 
Yet, in his wanderings, is still within 
Th' attractive influence of that sunny spot. 
The Prodigal awoke, and thoughts of home 
Swelled his full breast ; and penitential tears, 
As sudden waters from the desert rock. 
Flowed from his flinty, sorrow-smitten heart 
Adown his pale, and famine-blanched cheeks ; 
And in his soul impartial conscience held 
The mirror of reflection, and displayed 
His guilt and folly, to repentance true ; 



THE PRODIGAL. 145 

And godly sorrow and impressions pure, 
And holy resolution nerved his frame — 
And he exclaimed, " I will arise and go 
Unto my father, and my guilt confess." 

The sun was verging to the distant west, 
Flinging his golden radiance on the mounts 
That girded, as with emerald zones, the plains 
Of his own happy regions ; and he longed 
For speed like his that he might soar away, 
As if on wings of eagles, and behold 
His father's house — his long forgotten home. 
His feet were sandalled, and his loosened loins 
Girded for journeying, and in his hand 
A pilgrim's staff, and in his bosom thoughts 
And yearning aspirations, that had nerved 
With vigour every fibre of his frame. 

Onward he journeyed, with unfaltering step 
Beneath the silent canopy of night 
With famine faint, and sleepless, though the stars 
Were tired with watching, and the wearied light 
N 



146 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Semed to lie down upon the mountain's couch — 
Onward, still onward sped he, night and day, 
With pace unslackened and unwearied feet. 

Day broke in beauty on the rosy earth ; 
Upon the purple clouds the yellow hair 
Of Phoebus floated, like a web of gold 
The mountain tops like smoking altars sent 
Their cloudy incense to the smiling heaven, 
And slow revealing through the silver mist, 
Their sparkling plain of waters, creek and rill 
Rolled on their way trilling a song of glee : 
The variegated carpeting of earth 
Glowed with the embroidered flowers of nature's loom, 
The velvet foliage of the trees and shrubs 
Was studded with the dewy gems of morn, 
The flowrets bowed their purple coronets, 
And from the thousand throats of gay plumed birds 
Arose the woodland anthem on the air ; 
All nature seemed rejoicing in new life. 
As if conspiring to his ancient home 
To bid him welcome. 



THE PRODIGAL. 147 

On a little mount 
He stood, and down a sloping vale beheld 
His father's halls that rose in pillared pride. 
High in the sunlight. 

The rill whose purlings had amused his youth, 
The copse, the glade, and ancient-looking trees, 
The scenes of childish sport were still the same j 
And with familiar, and with smiling face 
Greeted his coming. Now the dread of change 
Stole o'er the Prodigal — his father's house ! 
Had sickness and decay wrought changes there ? 
Would a kind father's voice and mother's tears, 
In nature's speechless eloquence, receive 
Their guilty, wandering, and unworthy child ? 
Or would they coldly scrutinize his form, 
The wreck of dissipation, and his rags, 
The tatters of his wretchedness and shame ? 
Did they yet live, or had their hoary hairs 
Gone down with weight of sorrow to the grave, 
For the low fall of their unhappy son? 
Oppressed with thought, he carefully composed 



148 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The shredded garments on his shrivelled form, 
And as he went, moistened each step with tears. 

Far off a venerable man appeared. 
With locks and beard of snow, sweeping his bust 
And in his step and mien, the Prodigal 
His father recognised ; and hastening bowed 
Him prostrate in humility of soul, 
And deep abasement, while he kissed his feet, 
And craved a place of service in the hall^ 
That gave him being, once his happy home. 



Silent and solemn all the father stood, 
No pardon spake, no word of joy or love; 
Yet from his aged eyes, the gushing tears 
Fell on the trembling hands that clasped his knees ; 
And ever and anon, a heavy sob 
Convulsed his bosom j and as nature gave 
Strength to his joy-stunned intellect, he raised 
The suppliant wanderer, and to his breast 
Strained him in all the fervency of love. 
Mingled with pity,— to his errors gave 



THE PRODIGAL. 



149 



A free and willing pardon, and restored 
The mourner to his home and all the joys 
Of peace and innocence, that chase the clouds 
Of godly sorrow, and repentance dark, 
And pour bright sunshine on the smiling soul. 




THE RESURRECTION, 



And heboid there was a great earthquake ; for the angel of the Lord 
descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the 
door, and sat upon it. 

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. 

And for fear of him the keepers did shake and became as dead men. 

Matthew xxviii., 2, 3, 4. 



The scourge — the platted thorns — the nails — the 
wood — 
Had done the work of death; and he who, then, 
For our iniquities was bruised, and bare 
The burden of our sorrows, with a voice 
That rent the mountains and the solid rocks, 
Cried, " It is finished," as he poured his blood 
In rich libations for the soul of man. 

Night's ebon banner floated o'er the world, 
Nor moon nor star beamed through the sable robes 
Of woe, that shrouded up the mourning sky, 
And silence brooded o'er the sickly scene. 



THE RESURRECTION., 151 

A martial band reclined upon their spears, 
In mute assemblage round the Saviour's tomb. 
With watching they were wearied, and soft sleep 

began 
To steal with drowsy weight upon their eyes ; 
When two long trails, like fiery comets, streamed 
Athwart the darkness of the starless sky. 
And a quick sound like rushing wings was heard. 
Stirring the stillness of the sluggish air. 

Near and more near blazed the resplendent orbs, 
While chilling fear drove back the hurried blood. 
In icy chillness to their throbbing breasts. 

Till heaven's full glory burst upon their sight, 

And flashed in fire, reflected from their spears, 

And wings angelic waving o'er their heads. 

Two cherubs, bright in heaven's eflulgent rays, 

Descended, furled up their pinions bright. 

And stood beside the tomb of Zion's king. 

They touched the ponderous stone that closed the 

tomb ; 
Backward it rolled obedient to the touch, 
And gave to life the prisoner of death. 



152 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 



From out the gloomy portal of the grave. 
Arrayed in his sepulchral robes of white, 
Triumphant came th' Almighty King, who led 
Captive captivity. His countenance 
Was mild as when he smiles upon the storm, 
And the wild rage of warring heaven serenes. 
The eye of him that pierced him quailed; the knees 
Of the stout soldiers, each the other smote. 
And like men dead, upon the ground they fell. 
Loud, through his hollow caverns, murmured Death ; 
Dire wailings filled th' infernal regions wide ; 
While with triumphant hallelujahs rung 
The joyous courts of high empyrean heaven. 




CREATION. 



And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 

Genesis i., 3. 



Eternity's predestined moment came, 

When countless ages, now, had ta'en their flight, 
To break the fetters of chaotic night, 

And bid the shining universe proclaim, 

The power and glory of Jehovah's name: 

Then earth and heaven rose at his word of might, 
But dark and lustreless : " Let there be light '." 

The Almighty said, and lo ! the living flame. 
That, wrapped in chaos' sable mantle, lay. 

From out the darkened depths, all-glorious sprang. 
The lightning's blaze — the comet's milder ray, — 
The moon, the night — the sun to rule the day ; 

And all the morning stars together sang, 

Till heaven's high dome with the full chorus rang. 



SENNACHERIB. 



And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and 
smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thou- 
sand ; and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all 
corpses. 

So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned and 
dwelt at Nineveh. 

And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch 
his god, that Adrammekch and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the 
sword, and they escaped into the land of Arminia. 

•2 Kings, xix., 33, 35, 37. 



On Kishon's ancient water gleams 

The full-orbed moon, like silver bright 

The reedy shores beneath her beams, 
Are clothed in robes of living light, 

And the white tents, in long array, 
That dot its banks, clear, and half hid 

Amid the trees that skirt the bay. 
Flash like a silver pyramid ; 

And brazen chariots armed for war, 
Are ranged around the spacious field, 
And silver spear and burnished shield 



SENNACHERIB. 155 

Send their bright radiance from afar, 
While high above the banner spreads 
Its guardian wings above their heads. 

They sleep — Assyria's warlike pride, 

Their dreams upon the coming dawn, 

When their proud king shall lead them on 
To death and devastation wide ; 

When the tall cedar trees, that gem, 

Like emeralds, the diadem 
Of hoary Carmel, all shall bow 

Their towering heads beneath the stroke, 

And Lebanon's tall fir and oak. 
Their branching honours laid full low— - 
A highway open for the roar 

Of brazen chariots fiercely driven, 
Where late the grove its ringlets hoar, 

Waved proudly to the winds of heaven ; 
A highway, where the Assyrian band. 
Its myriads may roll, like sand 

Innumerable, to surround 
Jerusalem's high citadel, , 



156 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

With mining ditch and hostile mound, 

To lay its walls low with the ground, 
And leave a smouldering pile to tell 

Where priests the sacred pavements trod- 
How, 'neath th' invader's engine fell, 

The city of the living God. 



'Twas midnight — -all still and serene — 
No sound o'er all the battle plain — 
The Avinds, as if held by a chain, 

Stirred not the wild-wood's foliage green ; 
And the meridian moon that rode 

In her celestial pathway high, 

With the pale clouds that round her flowed 

Like drapery, veiled her fearful eye ; 
'Twas still, like nature, held her breath, 
To look upon a work of death. 

And silent all, an angel stood — 
An angel by th' Almighty sent. 
For daring guilt's high punishment ; 



SENNACHERIB. 157 

The avenger of a nation's blood. 

And poured upon the midnight blast, 

Destruction, as it slowly past. 
Above the thousands slumbering there. 
In vengeance swept the poisoned air, 
Each particle replete with death — 
The groan, the gathering of the breath. 
The ashy lip and pale face tell 
That death has sped his errand well ; 
The vital currents languid flowed, 
And where the healthful crimson glowed. 
The bounding life-tide stilly stood, 
A putrid lake of stagnant blood ; 
And then the deep, deep sleep came on. 
The night for which there was no dawn. 

And morning broke ; and on the air 

Arose the trumpet's matin sound, 
In piercing notes, loud, shrill and clear, 

Yet few the eyes that wake around. 

Extended lifeless on the ground. 
The pride of all Assyria lay, 





153 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Their corpses blackening in the air, 
Beneath the gLiring eye of day. 

Fear fell on all ; from man to man, 
A cold, electric shiver ran, 

Withering the sense and aching sight, 
As their dilating pupils grew, 

At the dread slaughter of the night, 
By hands unseen to mortal view, 

Made in omnipotence of night. 
And Sennacherib stood amazed, 

Amidst the heaps of ghastly dead ; 

And horror and dismay, and dread 
Stole o'er him as he wildly gazed. 

To him the field of death had been, 
With millions slain, strewed far and wide, 

A common and a tranquil scene, 
Viewed with complacence and wdth pride- 
He had seen embattled legions rush 
To the w41d conflict ; and the blood 

From sword and spear, in currents gush, 
And had his warlike chariot driven 



SENNACHERIB. 159 

Through the firm phalanx, broke and riven 

By flaming quadrupeds, that trode 
Beneath their iron hoofs, the souls 
Of thousands, as his chariot rolls — 

Had seen the battle plain with dead 

And dying strewed — the trunk, the head 
And shattered limbs, — the arms, the feet, 

Mangled and crushed, with carnage red, 
Like some vast grove, the shady seat 

Of royal cedar, mountain oak, 

By the red lightning's scathing stroke. 
With giant limbs and trunks strewn o'er; 

Or by the wild tornado riven, 
Whose furious breath outswells the roar 

Of the four warring winds of heaven : 
Yet what were fields of slaughtered dead, 
And blood by men in combat shed, 

To the thick ranks that pressed the ground, 
Slain by th' Almighty's furious breath, 

Unstained by blood, unmarked by wound, 
And blackening: in the hues of death? 



160 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY, 

He looked on Salem, where the sun 
Shed down the glory of his fires 
Upon the holy city's spires 
And hung upon the eastern sky, 
O'er the great temple, like the eye 

Watchful, of the Eternal One : 

He looked upon the dead, that lay 

Around him, withering on the heath — ■ 

And the deep curse he durst not breathe, 
Muttered in heart against the God 

Of Judah, who had blocked his way, 
With thousands blasted at his nod. 



Within the idol Nisroch's fane, 

In honour of that heathen god, 
Arose the sacred sackbut's strain ; 
And incense in thick volumes rolled, 
Up to the roof of burnished gold, 

As royal Sennacherib trod 
The porphry pavement, to the shrine 
Where gems and jewels gorgeous shine- 



SExNNACHERIB. 161 

And at the sacred footstool bowed, 
In low obeisance down, and prayed 
To Nisroch, as he cursed the God 
Of Judah, and in anger laid 
His sword upon the shrine, and vowed 
Vengeance against the Jewish crowd. 

Light sandals slid the pavement o'er, 
Unheard by him who lowly bent, 
Breathing, like pestilence, curse and prayer 
Before the smoking altar there ; 

And two dark forms, whose faces bore 

The impress of their dark intent, 
A moment by the monarch stood : 
Anon the silver ataghan. 
Flashed from its sheath in radiance bright ; 
Like lightning fell the stroke ; and blood 
Spouted and o'er the altar ran, 
Quenching, in crimson shower, its light. 

The royal Sennacherib lay, 
By parricidal hands struck down, 



162 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Upon the tesselated floor. 
With death-glazed eyes, weltering in gore- 
His glittering, though blood-stained crown 
Destined, a curse, to shine upon 
The brow of murderei and son. 



ADORATION OF THE WISE MEN. 



Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of 
Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. 

Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen 
his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 

Matthew ii., 1, 2. 



From airy mount — from pyramid, 

To gaze on midnight skies, 
Wlien sleep, with rosy hand, the lid 

Had sealed of other eyes — 
Theirs was the task, and well they knew 
Each orb that gemmed night's throne of blue. 

But now a star of brighter sheen 

Illumed the orient o'er, 
Than eye of magus e'er had seen, 

With all his ancient lore — 
And mocked, with its mysterious light. 
The star-read chroniclers of night. 



164 SCRIl'TUIfAL ANTHOLOGY. 

It Streamed not wildly through the air, 

A meteor from afar ; 
It shook not from its lurid hair 

The light of plague and war; 
But mildly, brightly beamed above, 
The morning-star of peace and love. 

They gird their loins, and on their feet 
The pilgrim's sandals bind ; 

And tempt the desert sand and heat, 
The royal babe to find : 

And worship then, w^th one accord, 

The King — appointed of the Lord. 

O'er many an arid waste they passed, 
And many a verdant plain j 

But on the starry herald cast 
The brightness of its train 

O'er swelling stream — o'er storied fount- 

O'er ancient tower, and sacred mount. 

Till o'er Judea's hills it stood, 
A silent sentinel ; 



ADORATION OF THE WISE MEN. 165 

And on the grove and flashing flood 

Its sacred watchlight fell. 
The magi gazed ; and awe intense, 
And wonder, wrapt the soul and sense. 

No hoary tower was standing by ; 

No golden-cinctured dome, 
In pillared pride, aspired on high, 

A prince's royal home — 
No lordly pile, that wealth and fame 
Had deigned to honour with their name. 

The infant King of Kings they found — 

His palace was a stall ; 
His mother all the court around — 

The hay his royal pall : 
His sceptre, straw — his diadem, 

The star that shone o'er Bethlehem. 

Clothed in his own humility. 

There lay the promised light, 
" That kings and priests desired to see, 

Yet died without the sight." 



166 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The brightness of the father's grace, 
And image of his glorious face. 

And from their treasury they poured 
Myrrh, frankincense and gold ; 

And as the willing knee adored, 
That gift of price untold — 

Made to the king in humble guise. 

The reverent bosom's sacrifice. 

The humble king — Creation's heir — 

Whose everlasting throne. 
In heaven — in hell — in earth — in air — 

The universe shall own. 
When empires fall — when sceptres rust- 
And kings and diadems are dust. 



THE TOWER OF BABEL. 



And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose tqj 
fnay reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scatter- 
ed abroad upon the face of the earth. 

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one; and they have all one 
language ; and this they begin to do ; and now nothing will be restrain- 
ed from them which they have imagined to do. 

Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they 
may not understand one another's speech. 

Genesis iv., 6,7. 



When judgments thicken, from the hand of God, 
And desolation's blast of fury blows, 
Man, like a buli-ush, boweth down his head 
Beneath the tempest, and, with humble voice, 
Confesses the supremacy of heaven : 
But when the hand of mercy strews his path 
With blessings, and around him all is peace. 
He lifteth up the haughty head of pride — 
With voice presumptuous, asks. Who is the Lord l 
And takes the holv name of God in vain. 



Remembrance of the goodness of the Lord, 
Which, from the devastation of the flood. 
Preserved their fathers, and his sacred pledge, 



168 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Were blotted from their memories ; and, in pride 

Of heart and self-sufficiency of power, 

They boasted, " Let us build a city up. 

And tower whose lofty top may reach to heaven, 

That, when a deluge shall o'erspread the earth, 

We may, amid its billowy terrors, laugh. 

They toiled ; and high above the clouds went up 
The work of pride and folly, till the sun 
Turned, first, his eye upon it when he rose. 
And paused to ponder on it ere he set : 
But God went down in anger, mid thick clouds 
And lightnings ; and the thunder-stricken pile 
Rocked to its mighty base ; while all around 
Fear fell upon the crowds, as, to and fro, 
They hurried in despair; and uttered cries. 
Strange cries of terror ; and astonished heard 
The altered speech of their companions' tongues; 
But wondered rather at the sudden change 
Their own had undergone, as barbarous tones 
Jarred harshly in their bosoms ; and their lips 
Were trembling: with the utterance of strange sounds. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

The morninsr sun 



5 

In splendour bright, 

Gilt Salem's towers 
With living light j 
And streaked the fair ethereal blue 
With tints of gold and purple hue ; 
Earth bloomed in loveliness and grace, 
And robed in smiles was Nature's face ; 
But soon the fading sun grows pale, 
Ciuenched are his beams o'er tower and vale. 

The quaking earth 

Is sunder rent — 

The rocky hills — 

The battlement ; — 

The bursting tombs 

Disclose their dead; 

The saints forsake 

Their earthly bed ; 

And midnight gloom 

Veils earth and skies, 

For, " Lo ! the God 

Of Nature dies!" 
P 



THE HEAVY-LADEN. 



When I looked for good, then evil came upou me ; and when I watch- 
ed for light, there came darkness. 

Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then I would flee away and be at 
rest. 

Psalm lv., 3, 6. 



I SAW her when a sunny-hearted child. 
Her step elastic as the mountain roe ; 

Her eyes like the gazelle's, piercing and wild ; 
Her voice's flow. 

Like the sweet gush of music, soft and mild. 

Her tresses waved above an ivory brow 
In darksome beauty, like a raven's wing, 

Folded upon a ridge of virgin snow ; 
The rose in spring 

Was not so crimson as her cheeks' pure glow. 

I saw her in her maiden prime ; the girl 

Merged in the matron, when each beauty shone 



THE HEAVY-LADEN. 171 

Pure and resplendent as the snowy pearl 

That gems the zone 
Of southern Peri, 'neath the billowy whirl. 

Her heart was like a crystal fount, whence came 
The streams of feeling and affection pure — 

Her mind a sun, whose flashings were as flame, 
Too bright t' endure ; 

And shed a halo round her matchless name. 

I saw her on her bridal morn — the rose 

Upon her dimpled cheek ; and on her brow 

Hope's signet set, a talisman to woes — 
Her nuptial vow 

A rainbow tint o'er all her beauties throws. 

Bright grew her eyes, as to her spouse she spoke, 
And shed a radiance o'er her features fair ; 

And as the utterance from her full heart broke, 
It told, how there. 

The gushing feelings of affection woke. 

I saw her sallow cheek with hectic flushed; 
The brilliance of her eye was quenched and gone ; 



172 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

The mellow voice that once, like music gushed, 

Had lost its tone — 
Her tender heart was by th' intemperate crushed. 

Her hopes were blighted ; he who was her all, 
Revelling in vice, in harlotry, and wine, 

Cast o'er life's prospects all, a gloomy pall — 
Bowed to their shrine, 

And poured for her the wormwood and the gall. 

I saw her when upon her forehead fair, 

The death-damps gathered, and the icy chill ; 

No soothing spouse with kindly voice was there, 
Her fears to still — 

Her crushed heart broke. Where is her spirit? where ? 

I saw the broken-hearted in her shroud. 

Coffined and borne to tenant the cold ground ; 

While he, with blood-shot eyes and aspect proud, 
Stared careless round — 

The only tearless eyes I saw among the crowd. 



DECAY. 



As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up ; 
So man lieth down and riseth not ; fill the heavens be no more they 
shall not awake nor be raised out of sleep. 

And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is re- 
moved out of his place. 

The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which 
grow out of the dust of the earth ; and thou destroyest the hope of man. 

Job XIX., 11, 19, 20. 



Time's tireless current ever bears along 
The bright, the beautiful, the gay, the strong; 
Till broken on Oblivion's livid shore, 
Their glories vanish and are seen no more. 
Decay has stamped indelibly her name, 
On every thing through nature's general frame ; 
And, in time's lapse, to vast creation's throne 
Shall vindicate her right, and claim her own ; 
And wave her dusky banner wide unfurled, 
O'er the gray atoms of a crumbled world. 



174 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Then mourn not, man I that 'neath th' eternal sun, 
Thy race, thy destiny, shall soon be run, 
And thou, no more amid the mantling flush 
Of blooming nature — or her music's gush — 
Or in her solemn solitudes, be found ; 
But, " dust to dust," be mingled with the ground. 
Thine is the fate of each created thing — 
Transient and perishable. Lo ] the spring. 
That waves o'er field and velvet mead, her wand, 
And scatters flowers and fragrance o'er the land. 
Is evanescent ; and her leaves, that gem 
The forest with an emerald diadem, 
Sapless and faded, by the winds of heaven, 
To moulder with the kindred earth, are driven. 
The tinted petals of the vernal flowers, 
That deck with chrysolite the sunny bowers, 
Or grassy sward or forest-cinctured dells. 
With the rich lustre of their silken bells — 
The reddening fruit that like the sapphire gleams, 
Or on the bough, in golden globules, beams, 
Languish and wither, and their charms decayed, 
Are in earth's common cemetery laid. 



DECAY. 175 

And all the insect tribe, whose glossy wings 
Of gold and azure, sport in flutterings 
Amid the sunshine or the balmy breeze, 
Or flowery arbours of embowering trees — 
Like tlie untimely flowers — are swept away, 
Round which they wanton in the sunny ray. 
Nor insects only, — all that wing the plain — 
From the vain jay, spreading 'mid flowers his train, 
To the strong-pinioned eagle, that, sublime. 
Soars through the regions of th' ethereal clime, 
And bathes his buoyant bosom in the rays 
Of the red sun, and gazes on his blaze — 
And the innumerable bestial train. 
That range the field or forest's wide domain : 
The strong-lunged lion, whose tremendous roar 
Outswells the dash of ocean on his shore — 
The giant elephant, whose mighty tread 
Shakes the firm earth like thunders overhead, 
Whose massy trunk whole forests hurls to heaven, 
Uprooted, writhed, as if by whirlwinds driven; 
And the leviathan of fearful mass, 
With skin of iron and with bones of brass, 



176 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

Dread prince of all that dwell in ocean's caves, 
Spouting in cataracts her troubled waves ; — 
Shorn of their strength and glory by decay, 
Are decompounded and return to clay. 

Nor these alone fate's dust and darkness share : 
The mighty of the earth — heroes, who bear 
The banner stiffened with life's crimson flood, 
O'er devastated realms and seas of blood, 
And with th' ensanguined sabre write their name, 
High on the imperishable scroll of fame : 
And purple kings, upon whose awful brows 
The glittering coronet of empire glows — 
Who, o'er wide realms the ruling sceptre sway, 
And bid the nations tremble and obey — 
And patriot statesmen, men of mighty mind, 
Who, to no sordid policy confined, 
Exert their giant efforts in the cause 
Of equal rights, and liberties and laws — 
These, too, shall perish — All the patriot band, 
Who framed the freedom of our native land, 
And on the ruined base of tyranny, 



DECAY. 177 

A glorious temple reared to liberty — 

Are now no more ! — The land that gave them birth 

Is rendered holy by their sacred earth. 

And they, on whom their sacred mantles fall. 

Who now, amid the legislative hall. 

Still keep in all their fervency, the fires 

That warmed the bosoms of their patriot sires — 

Must leave to other hands their mighty trust, 

And bow their heads full-honoured to the dust. 

All works of art tend to oblivion lone, 
Tower, palace, battlement, and funeral stone — 
The apex of the eternal pyramid 
Crumbles, and 'neath the rolling sands is hid ; 
And populous cities : — Where are now the halls, 
The marble fanes, within Palmyra's walls ? 
Strewed with the ground, a monumental pile, 
O'er which decay and envious ruin smile. 
Where once above the clouds rose purple Tyre, 
With gilded dome and battlement and spire, 
The sea-waves dash the angry foam and fret. 
And sea-worn fishers dry the dripping net — 



l7S SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 

And centi-portal Thebes, that, like a rock, 
Stood war's firm engines and their iron shock — 
Fell 'neath the slow yet steady stroke of fate, 
Each wall in dust, and battered down each gate. 

Where are the splendours of imperial Rome, 
Her statues, temples, capitolian dome, 
To which the victor, in triumphal car, 
Dragged earth's remotest kings taken in war ; 
While " Ho triumphe" from the myriad train 
Rolled down the Tiber to the purple main. 
Where once the palace of the Csesars' rose, 
The newt, the lizard, and the toad repose ; 
And the lone owl hoots where the senate rung 
With the loud eloquence of Tully's tongue. 

Nor cities only sink amid the rush 
Of time's eternal torrent, — empires crush, 
Totter and tumble into dread decay. 
And, robed in dust, forever pass away. 
The earth herself shall fail in lapse of time, 
Her hills shall crumble, and her mounts sublime ; 



179 



The genial juices of her body fail. 

Her head grow hoary and her features pale ; 

Her decompounded limbs to ashes turn. 

And be laid in the macrocosm's urn. 

The mother Ocean, too, that ceaseless smiles 

Upon the features of her purple isles, 

And sings her lullaby to soothe to rest 

The offspring pillowed on her snowy breast — 

Must fall beneath time's scythe, and every isle 

Be gathered round her dark funereal pile. 

The sun shall fade, the mighty sun, the urn. 

Whence pour the beams of all the stars that burn : 

Whose ocean-tide rolls on the waves of light, 

To every star that gilds the gloom of night ; 

Yea, he shall perish, every planet fall, 

And shrouded be in darknesss ebon pall ; 

The adamantine pillars of high heaven 

Be, from their everlasting bases, riven — 

And dark oblivion wave her flag unfurled, 

O'er the gray ruins of a crumbled world. 

Then mourn not, man, th' inevitable doom, 
The dust, the darkness, of the common tomb ; 



180 



SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. 



Let truth gird up thy loins, and virtue's ray- 
Illume thy footsteps in their downward way 
To the dim vale of shades, the spirit land, 
Where silent sleep earth's sons, a mighty band ; 
And when the night of ages rolls away, 
Before the bursting beams of endless day. 
From out its dusty tenement shall rise, 
Thy renovated body to the skies — 
And shine in splendour as the golden sun, 
When robed in glory on his burning throne j 
In deathless bloom forever live and smile. 
O'er earth and sun and systems' smouldering pile. 




V 



OCT 1958 :! i 



